[kolya3]

If an employer is smart they'll calculate the hours wasted interviewing candidates * avg hourly pay and likely realize that this cost is far greater than the $15K fee they'd pay a recruiter. Not to mention the delays in your projects as a result of your best engineers being distracted with interviewing candidates.

[lhc-]

Even if your recruiter suggested some potentially strong candidate, you still have to interview them to be sure they are a good fit and to be sure they actually have the skills they claim. I'm not sure how this saves you time in that respect.