[commanda]

If technical recruiters did actually have technical experience, they could make much more money being programmers rather than working as recruiters. Therefor, there are few to no technically experienced recruiters. This isn't a problem that's going to fix itself, unless companies start valuing recruiters by paying the good ones a lot more. Clearly, this isn't happening widely, if at all. So instead of bitching about bad recruiters, startup founders could put their money where their mouths are and hire technically experienced people to recruit for them.

[tdfx]

Anecdotally, the IT recruiters I know make more money than the developers I know. If you look at industry averages then you'll probably find recruiter income to be misleadingly low. Like most sales jobs, there's an incredible amount of entry-level turnover and stagnation at the left of the curve. Once you limit yourself to looking at people with a few years of successful experience under their belts, they actually make quite a bit of money.

[arbuge]

As a matter of fact, that's the way many successful startup founders operate - lots of them say they get their best hires by referrals from existing hires.