I think it's like real estate agents. It's possible to luck into a payday even if you do a poor job because the quality of the product being purchased is divor

I think it's like real estate agents. It's possible to luck into a payday even if you do a poor job because the quality of the product being purchased is divorced from the quality of the service you provide - luck into showing the right job to the right person, and you get paid, even if you didn't add any other value anywhere. So you can either try to do a good job of matching people and jobs, or else just shoot for numbers and try to match a lot of people and jobs. I've recently been doing a job search, and I've had one recruiter who I felt really helped me do a better job searching for jobs. I've had five do zero-value-added resume forwarding. One more who is somewhere in between. And two dozen who didn't even read my geographic or full-time preferences who have received quick nos. The part that really bugs me is I actually like one of the jobs from the zero-value-added resume forwarding, so a poor recruiter might end up getting paid through sheer luck and numbers.