And the third reason: to stop the candidate going direct to the company. But from a candidates viewpoint they don't really care what reason the recruiter has f

And the third reason: to stop the candidate going direct to the company. But from a candidates viewpoint they don't really care what reason the recruiter has for hiding the company name, it takes away valuable information from them when looking at job ads. There are always going to be some companies who prefer not to be named (stealth hedge funds, etc.) but I think they're in a relatively small minority. I suspect for the most part avoiding letting the competition know what you're hiring for is fairly pointless, as the first thing your recruiter is going to do is to call the best potential candidates and pitch them the job. And as it turns out the best potential candidates are often most likely to be working for your competitors. When I was working in investment banking and got a call for a recruiter hiring for a rival trading desk I frequently pumped them for information which we could use for our own advantage. I'm pretty sure everyone else does that as well.