Agreed on the networking. In terms of recruiters, I've only ever met a single good one, and I'd say generally recruiters, especially the third-party kind, are

Agreed on the networking. In terms of recruiters, I've only ever met a single good one, and I'd say generally recruiters, especially the third-party kind, are pretty useless and should be avoided at all costs. The only exception may be if the recruiter owns their own recruiting business as this is a sign they may know what they're talking about. Recruiters can be pretty easily bypassed by either contacting the hiring manager directly or through networking. I don't plan on ever dealing with recruiters again.