But after thinking about it, I think recruiters have an important part to play in the current process, but it's not as a filter. Rather they are just a really expensive polling mechanism: Are you looking for a job now? Are you looking for a job now? Are you looking for a job now? ...
Like all polling mechanisms, if there's too much polling, it puts a heavy load on the system.
During a recent job interview, the interviewer mentioned that there was another position in the organization for which I would be qualified. The position had been open for over a year and the department head was desperate for any half-way qualified candidate.
Furthermore, when I say that I was qualified for the position, that was an understatement. I am literally the only person on the face of the earth that has experience in their domain who isn't already employed. I also exceeded all of the requirements from their job ad (e.g. they wanted a BS and I have a PhD).
So, I sent a nice cover-letter and resume explaining my experience and expressing interest in their project (it was a pretty neat project). Three days later, HR rejected my application without so much as an e-mail. They still haven't found anyone for the post.
I've been seeing this time and again. Hiring isn't about finding good people, it's about rejecting bad people. We'd rather reject 100 qualified employees than risk letting one knucklehead in.
Here are some areas that I find irritating;
- Finding companies that I want to work for, other than well known companies. Indeed sucks, I don't trust it.
-Terrible job descriptions i.e. this recent one I saw for a technical project manager: "Expert in python, php, ruby on rails, and Java Spring. 10 yrs exper required and we will pay up to 55K"
-Getting resumes to speak to the position, keyword loading, properly listing skills, achievements, etc,
-Disorganized contact with recruitment teams. ie. I had an amazing phone conversation with a hiring manager, at the end he asked which of his two positions I was interested in. A week later recruiter turns me down for one the positions.
-Complete lack of knowledge from recruiters: ie. We use a framework you haven't used before, I'm not sure you can make that switch.
-Location - I'm looking to leave my current location and have targeted a city, I'm getting turned down because I don't live there.
Its a seller's market for programmers, but the traditional recruiter style means you don't hear a single thing about a company until you're on the phone with them (and they're trying to figure out whether you're competent). Requirements lists are NOT the way to engage people who are just looking for better opportunities (but don't necessarily need a new job).
Also regarding how recruiters handle things... about half of recruiters just want to match your resume bullet points to a list. They ignore important things like domain knowledge and the ability of a coder to learn new things. Oh, you have 5 years in .net, rails and HTML/CSS, but you haven't used their lightweight CSS framework yet? Sorry, we're looking for someone that matches better. I have yet to meet a recruiter that has any idea how much time and effort it takes to learn any particular technology over some other. Learning and being able to apply the fundamentals of OO programming takes a heck of a lot longer than swapping from C# to Java, or from Backbone to Angular.