[fredophile]

I've had positive experiences with third party recruiters. They're experts on the state of the job market. They know who is hiring and what their processes are like. They can tell you what to expect at each stage of the process. When you're doing your job search you want to time things so that all of the offers come within a few weeks of each other. Recruiters know how to make that happen. They also know what salary ranges companies will pay and can negotiate a better deal than you might get yourself.

A good recruiter cares about getting a good placement. I don't plan to look for another job anytime soon. However, because of my positive experience I'd definitely recommend the last recruiter I worked with to former coworkers and friends in my field.

One catch with recruiters is that they seem to prefer placing senior people. I'm guessing this is a combination of better payout (their pay is often a percentage of he placed salary) and the fact that senior positions are harder to fill so there are less other candidates to compete with. Finally, this is based on good experiences. I've never had a good experience with a third party recruiter that cold called me. The good experiences came from recommendations from friends so YMMV.