Recruiters can get you back to work in no time. This is their job. Here in UK I love to work with recruiters (found last 3 jobs trough them). The only thing that I have to do is to send 10 emails to top 10 recruitment agencies in a region and next week I will have at least couple interviews. A lot of companies have their favourite recruitment agencies and they trust them. It's kind of like having "your guy" inside the company. Recruiter will always do initial interview with you and then he will nag the company to schedule interview. You are not risking being annoying to your potential employer, recruiter is doing it for you.