[sqldba]

"Opportunity"! Opportunity to work for less while the recruiter sits there earning a fat fee for merely passing on my resume? No thanks.

I love how everyone thinks their job is some amazing opportunity but won't back it up with something useful you can put towards maybe buying a place to live, like money.

[rilita]

Recruiters don't merely pass on resumes. They work hard to find viable candidates and to tolerate their crappy attitudes when they are trying to help place people in good jobs.

[ufmace]

I don't know about the overall market for recruiters, but it doesn't look that way to most developers, since the crappy recruiters tend to spam everyone who sounds vaguely qualified for the position based on a keyword search on Linkedin, Google, Github, etc. Any good recruiters who are actually working hard to find viable candidates for a position tend to get lost in the noise.

[rilita]

I have interacted to a meaningful extent with at least 10 different major recruiting firms, and I can tell you that it varies greatly. There are lots of ones that suck, but some of them are actually quite good and respond well and work for you if you actually talk to them and explain what you are looking for.

Hating on all recruiters since a large percentage of them suck isn't fair.

[chadgeidel]

In my experience this has not been the case.