[fecak]

As a recruiter, I'd agree that many are terrible, and you're correct that many got into recruiting because it is an easy industry to enter. Recruiting firms pay commission-based comp packages, so the risk to a bad hire is rather low. Give them a phone extension and a computer, maybe a premium LinkedIn account, and they're off. Lots of C students in recruiting.

A recruiter's listings are somewhat important, but not as important as their knowledge of the market. A recruiter could have a weak contingency relationship with all the best companies in town, but if they don't understand something as basic as the market value of each candidate (not to mention a host of other things) they are doing their candidates a disservice.

Good recruiters usually have good listings because hiring companies tend to disengage from recruiting agencies that don't act ethically.

[hunterloftis]

> Good recruiters usually have good listings because hiring companies tend to disengage from recruiting agencies that don't act ethically.

In my experience, companies that (have to) use recruiters tend to have other broken practices as well. For example, the person in charge of recruiting agency relationships - usually a non-technical middle manager - may neither know nor care about sound or ethical results.