[yowlingcat]

I really understand and empathize with this sentiment, because for at least five years, I had pretty bad experiences with recruiters. But I'd caution you to not throw out the baby with the bathwater -- they're out there.

At the past few companies I've been at, I've had the chance to work with some really thoughtful, practical and productive recruiters. Secondly, at companies I've worked at with great recruiters, we overwhelmingly were able to build a great organization of engineers who I genuinely enjoyed collaborating with. I think getting to the root of there being so few good recruiters requires a bit of reframing -- why are there so many shockingly subpar recruiters out there?

If you think about it that way, there's so many shockingly subpar recruiters out there for the same reason there are so many shockingly subpar companies. The internal economics of a company allow it to "remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" -- but just as equally, it could force to company to hire in a savvy manner to arbitrage an edge in the talent market that bigger, more complacent actors are leaving untapped.

There can be a lot of problems with VC funded rocket-ship companies that can end up being pseudo-cult like entities that crash and burn like WeWork. And yet, I've consistently had great luck getting amazing opportunities at growth stage startups that would be very hard to get at established companies that could really care less about losing me (or anyone else) as a candidate -- with a recruitment process that belies that apathy in a very palpable manner. Conversely, these growth stage startups actually fought to hire me, as well as the organization that I saw develop around me. I know that not every such company is like this, but I guess what I'll say is that I've had better luck with them than with the big companies.