Yeah impressive chat experience but in the end just a list of jobs on email.
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As other have said, the answer is pretty boring: some are amazingly good and useful, others not.
They are distributed along an entire spectrum going from the very professional, dedicated, knowledgeable, well-connected, insightful and helpful in preparing you to get and pass the interviews, to the completely useless, unprepared, messy and unreliable ones.
A bit like us candidates, if you want.
Reminds me of the old bit of F1 wisdom: The best drivers always end up in the best cars.
Most of them are more harmful than helpful.
Just look at them. 90+% have zero experience in any field. Most of them aim to fill a position, and they conduct keyword matching (I have no idea why finance companies, with all the money they allegedly have, still use this kind of recruitment). They have zero risk tolerance, cause they have low or zero knowledge, so they search for people with the same position in other companies and then try to poach them. Result? A market that is stuck, overpriced, and with debatable talent. I had to use some recruiters and rec. Companies to hire for my company, and it was useless primarily, always the same people, 0 difference, no news, nothing (also if you care about diversity, the real one, not the social media one, most of the recruiters are a big problem here). I ended up doing the whole job. Nowadays, a good data query or AI script (depending on your level of geekness) and a paid subscription to LinkedIn give much better results than most of these recruiters. When I had a job with title X, I was literally approached at least every day, sometimes multiple times, then when I was made redundant, I was suddenly not fit anymore (same person, literally a few months later!!!). The bigger the companies (Oxford K…., Hunter …, Selby …, and others), the LESS helpful they are.
When I was the hiring manager, I also noticed that most of the companies focus only on “pleasing” the hiring part, the company on one side, and treat the other side, the candidate pool, as a commodity. I found this profoundly wrong and a bit disturbing, even more when I found myself in the pool mentioned above. This is a big miss in the already difficult equation of hiring, and just hoping that Quantum and/or AI or whatever is next will just level the field is stupid and reckless at best.
I began developing a direct relationship with people working as recruiters (please note the difference). People who don’t ask for my CV first, but they want to know the person behind the buzzwords. In my opinion, this is the real recruiter’s job. Try to find them, pretty rare, and they can instead help you, provide feedback, guide, connect with companies or right candidates. And I learn from them, and they are pretty nice people.
So, long story short, my answer is: it depends. (but avoid like the plague the big companies, unless you have “your people”/direct contact there).
PS: to give some context, I have 25y of experience as Sw Eng, with 15 as Tech Leader (Eng. Manager/Director/CTO). And also this is my experience. I hope it helps.
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I think the worst culprets are those recruiters / search companies that advertise the perfect opportunity which naturally attracts hundreds of applications and yet invariably it is fictitious and purly a means to increase their roledex of candidates! There are a number of companies that come to mind and as a candidate you never hear a word!
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I met some dedicated recruiters who actually follow-up and reach out to me when they receive new opportunities, then a few of them seem to lack the necessary desire to do the work. It starts with building relationships, referrals, networking, and the realization that what you put in can ultimately be productive when applied the right way!
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I have received more job offers because of the people I know that from recruiters. I have used recruiters, but have not received any job offers from them. I am an attorney and finance professional (CPA).
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Same for me : I’ve met several recruiters, but never received a job offer from them. Hiring companies that want to remain anonymous tend to use them but many recruiters use social networks where they post the job offer … so that ends up being public after all and ridiculous, giving quite a bad impression of a potential employer. But who cares when one needs a job, right ? I’ve used social networks’ job portals and almost got there a few years ago, until the firm hiring was itself acquired, which kind of froze everything … Bad luck 
As regards the previous moves, they were through brokers who are middlemen for job offers as well as it seems !
Now I’d be happy to learn how you get hired in Switzerland or Belgium for instance when being a French national ? (after bonus time of course, let’s say as of February ?)
Many thanks.
Is there any merit to using recruiters beyond actually getting a job, do you think? Did they give any CV/interview advice that came in handy, or is it worth just ignoring them and chasing my network?
Thanks for the link to Jack&Jill, just tried it and that was fun. Let’s see what the results bring
Well I can only tell about my own experience but in Paris, the ones I met in the past, just wanted to build a cv bank at best, and I haven’t heard of them afterwards … But you might be lucky and get some advice … and take it for what it’s worth.
Well I would say that recruiters are generally suffering a bit of market depression at the moment. There may be exceptions of course but it’s one of those image type sectors where you can never show that there are less roles or any other struggles. However, I think that quite a few don’t reply now and that’s just a sign of the times unfortunately.
A recruiter contacted me on Linkedin and included a link in the message which was for me to look at his calendar and see when he can fit me in. Not when I’m available but I should stand in line. That seriously stikes a nerve when a so called recruiter expects me to do that.
I searched for his website and on the bottom it said “Site created by Godaddy”. Say no more.
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No, besides actually getting a job they are worthless 
For example, they are not good for making friends or dating
Sarcasm apart, yes, of course many of them give advice on how to prep an interview, when they manage to get you an interview. Some may even give you a precise idea of what questions you’ll be asked, of what your interviewer would like to hear from you (based on the failed interviews of previous candidates).
I don’t understand all this negativity about recruiters. There is an entire spectrum which goes from bad to really wonderful, exactly as for job seekers.
5 jobs out of 6 I got thanks to a recruiter, I would have never known that there was an opening in those companies because it wasn’t either advertised or I didn’t even know that those companies existed in first place.
Same for many other occasions where I got close to a job offer.
I loathe the idea that “networking” (that is, knowing some insiders you’re acquainted with) is the best way of getting a job in this industry. It might have been the norm in the past and perhaps it is still (unfortunately) very important. I hope it changes soon, so that those who babble a lot about meritocracy start to learn what it really means competing with candidates who are better qualified and more determined without having the necessary “network” (which usually is the sign of a privileged background). One can only dream.
Hello to you. I am a student looking for a job. Which recruiters would you suggest for me?
If it’s me you’re asking, I’ve never approached a recruiter first. I mean, in a sense I have, but by applying to job openings on LinkedIn, eFinancialCareers, job boards and directly to companies’ websites.
I don’t know what’s the situation now, but 9 years ago, as soon as I uploaded my profile on LinkedIn, I started receiving calls on the same day. Applying to jobs brings more connections as well.
Recruiters as individual persons are often specialised in geographic areas and in job roles (and sometimes also in seniority levels).
While some recruiting companies may accept unsolicited CVs, you’d better get noticed by creating an interesting profile on LinkedIn or here in eFC, for example. And applying by yourself.
In your case you should probably aim at internships, prominently.
It’s always good to know someone that knows someone. Even if those (good) recruiters don’t get you a job now, being a part of their network can open you up to lesser known opportunities further into your career, and sometimes ones that don’t even get publicly posted.