I agree the recruiter should be filtering candidates before submitting them; I disagree that it should be by using references. There's an inherent conflict of

I agree the recruiter should be filtering candidates before submitting them; I disagree that it should be by using references. There's an inherent conflict of interest for recruiters in handling references who are also potential leads, hence it's a situation that they should avoid placing themselves in. If they're going to do it at the very least it should be done by an outside agency.