Hopefully the email included some paraphrase of the words, "You're fired."

So was the recruiter pulling a spam shotgun, or did that engineer just do a really great job of self-promotion?

Also, of the portfolio sites you linked, Sacha's seems to be the good one. The others make errors ranging from "dies with no JavaScript" (Alex, Zach) to "spends the whole page talking about their childhood" (Zach) to "what is this, I don't even" (Dustin). Alex and Zach pass if we're talking about a junior role, but I'd filter them if it was for a sole or senior role.

What about the Atlassian approach [0]? They give the recruiters a chance to prove that they can deliver excellence and if not, both parties know it won't work out. I think it's a good model for the employer and the job-seeker.

p.s. I found out about this via this video: [1], scroll for transcript.

[0] http://www.atlassian.com/about/careers/recruiters.jsp

[1] http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2011/09/from-0-100million...