[joefife]

Yup. I simply exit the process if I'm confronted with this nonsense.

I know they're popular to hate, but I really rate IT recruiters for removing the pain out of job hunting.

Perhaps I've just been lucky, but my involvement with recruiters seems to be little more than an introductory chat about my CV, and they line up interviews.

I've found them hassle free.

[Shared404]

How do you find these good recruiters?

I'm currently job hunting, and a bit tired of sending out 3 - 5 apps a day via indeed or $COMPANY_SITE. Actually talking to someone would be nice.

[joefife]

I'm afraid my experience is with local companies, so unless you're in the central belt if Scotland, it won't be much use.

The two companies I'm thinking of recruit only for IT. If you have a local IT recruiting company, give them a call. If they take the time to understand your motivations and skills, it's probably a good start.

I've noticed a huge difference between specialist IT recruiters and regular firms. I don't bother speaking to firms not focused on IT. At list the specialist firms actually know what it is you're offering and understand what their clients are after.

[Beltalowda]

It depends a bit what kind of field you're in. I know that in Go there are two recruiters who specialize in Go and are quite good. I imagine that more specialized recruiters exist for other fields, too.

Look at Slack, Discord, IRC channels, forums, mailing lists, subreddits, or whatever community spaces exist for your field.

Outside of that, my experience is hit-and-miss. Usually the larger the recruiting agency, the larger the size of a "miss".