I forgot the other thing: One good thing about recruiters from the company's perspective is that provide plausible deniability about poaching. While perfectly l

I forgot the other thing: One good thing about recruiters from the company's perspective is that provide plausible deniability about poaching. While perfectly legal, if I personally start cold-calling developers around Toronto when I need to hire, I'm going to make a few enemies. But everyone knows that recruiters are going to be aggressive about finding candidates. For whatever social reason, it's perfectly acceptable to hire someone away from another company through a recruiter, but depending on how you do it you can step on toes doing the same thing directly. FWIW, almost any intermediary or pretext takes you off the hook. Meet someone at a conference? Hire them away. Meet someone at a developer lunch? Hire them away. Meet someone through a blind date service? Hire them away. But cold-calling them... Tacky and taboo.