[asfdsfggtfd]

Yes but the unscrupulous ones will be happy to give and receive fake reviews. The more honest ones won't. So it will be hard to tell the difference between a bad recruiter (fake positive and real negative reviews) and a good recruiter (real positive and fake negative reviews).

[mikekchar]

It's actually really easy. My standard test for potential recruiters: Tell me something about myself. This takes a tiny amount of work -- anybody who has my email address can google me and find a huge amount of stuff. A recruiter who is not bothered to do that will not be bothered to find a job that's good for me.

When I find a good recruiter, I stick with them (as long as I'm shopping in the area that they deal with). I make sure they know that. If a recruiter is good enough that they can value a long term relationship as opposed to frantically trying to meet their sales targets every month, then they are a good recruiter.

The downside is that there are practically no good recruiters ;-). If I'm seriously looking for a job, I look as hard for recruiters as I do for a job. Often I find the job before the recruiter.