[sanderjd]

You seem to have a good grasp on this, so I'll ask you: why are things set up such that recruiters are "Joe Random Recruiter" to me, rather than "Joe, who I have met, worked with across multiple job switches, and who relies on my trust"?

[vertis]

There are recruiters out there that fall into the later category. lookahead.com.au is a great example of a company that doesn't spam, doesn't pressure and doesn't lie.

I've known the founder of the company for about 5 years now and he is well respected within the communities he operates in (Ruby on Rails, iOS, DevOps, etc)

[withdavidli]

One big reason: turnover rate. For recruiters it's about 70% first year, and ~90% by second year. Most jobs are contract and not many people survive agencies. Internal jobs are more stable so turnover rates are likely a lot lower.

There are people that stay in contact throughout multiple switches, but it's pretty rare. Staying in touch after getting you multiple jobs presumes they are likely in agency and that they still work on the same type of roles. Agency turnover is high so they might not even be in recruiting after the first year. Then also take myself, I worked on varying roles from finance, healthcare, mech eng, swe, ml, pm, and more all in the last 2 years. Chances of me working the exact type of role I got you into a year later is unlikely.

[qeorge]

Perhaps a reputation system for recruiters, i.e., an Angie's List for recruiters, could help here? That could be a useful service.

Its a tough market to serve because the most people don't change jobs more than a couple times in their career.

[bcbrown]

Whenever you have a good interaction with a recruiter, tell them that, and tell them that you'd like to build a relationship and contact them every time you begin a job search. The good ones will be receptive.

[chrisbennet]

I think it is common for agencies to have Non Compete clauses such that if your favorite recruiter goes someplace else, they aren't allowed to represent you for a certain period.