The $300K/yr. recruiters I'm thinking of are not people who have some out-sized reputation, at least not as far as I'm aware -- I think the economics of the bus

The $300K/yr. recruiters I'm thinking of are not people who have some out-sized reputation, at least not as far as I'm aware -- I think the economics of the business simply allow them to make a lot of money if they can regularly place a small number of candidates each month -- see my reply below to another comment about how I figure that might work. * I do know one recruiter who truly does have a good reputation, but not for the reasons you suggest -- I met her years ago and while I haven't seen her for a while, every so often over the years, I'd be talking to someone about job-hunting and they'd say they knew a good recruiter I should talk to and, inevitably, the name they'd then mention was hers. And I don't think she did this by networking or attempting to create a higher profile or becoming an authority or by convincing people she had access to top people at top companies. I think she's just done a good job for people and so those people feel good about her and therefore about recommending her to others. Someone like that might be worth paying a lot to -- for all that good will in addition to her skill and experience. * BTW, it occurs to me that the first $300K recruiter I met told me he ran a Python user-group out of his offices -- and perhaps that wasn't the only group he did this for. That kind of thing, obviously, can help a recruiter become known to developers, but, again, not because of having an out-sized reputation -- rather, by just being around when developers congregate, giving him a chance to introduce himself to them, face-to-face. (I don't know how much business hosting such groups actually brought to his firm, but it obviously couldn't hurt).