Is there a version of this article for candidates? I don't have the network to be able to make a couple of phone calls and have a job in a week, so I'm interested in using a recruiter, but I don't know any good ones.
http://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2013/08/09/pretty/ is a good read for someone who is interested in finding a recruiter. One thing that the writer didn't mention was that some recruiters focus on jobs for a specific tech stack so you may want to look around their profile for a bit on LinkedIn to get a good idea of what they focus on.
Hey, I wrote that! +1 on what you said about tech stack, but I think fewer recruiters focus on tech stack these days. I think you are more likely to find recruiters with depth in a specific geography than a single language/platform.