> Front line recruiters tend to be non-technical, and can't pattern match for good candidates outside of very narrow criteria. (ex: They won't know that a perso

> Front line recruiters tend to be non-technical, and can't pattern match for good candidates outside of very narrow criteria. (ex: They won't know that a person with strong C# skills will likely be just fine with Java.) Sounds like a problem with the job description, rather than the recruiters. Sometimes you really do want an expert in a narrow domain, using a specific framework/language. Other times you don't. This needs to be communicated to the recruiters. Engineers love to lay the blame on the recruiters. In my experience, the recruiters are usually just a mirror for what the hiring managers are asking for. If the hiring managers do a poor job of defining the role, then how do you expect a recruiter to find good candidates for that role? If Java and/or C# experience works, communicate that to the recruiter. Don't just assume they will know. Even as an engineer, if someone asked me to find a Java candidate, I would find a Java candidate. I would not make assumptions about what other experience would fulfill the requirements. As far as filtering being the problem, I highly doubt it. Most of the complaints I hear from people are about the interview process. I know a few engineers that can't get hired, and it's not because of a lack of interviews. They just can't pass the interviews.