I agree that they mostly suck. The sucky ones are just very easy to filter. So you either engage them because they have a specific role at a specific company yo

I agree that they mostly suck. The sucky ones are just very easy to filter. So you either engage them because they have a specific role at a specific company you would like to work for... Or you ignore them. If they work for a (recruitment) company, I'll look at vacancies on their web site. If I don't like them, I'll either tell them why (if I feel like they may be of use later), give them an annoyed reply (if they annoyed me) or ignore them. Sometimes, I literally tell them to either give me more info up front, because I can't keep having phone calls just so you can tell me you have 10 vacancies that I might be a good fit. I'd be on the phone talking about Java jobs all day long (I don't have any Java experience). If they don't send me more info, that's fine. If they do, I'll give them some feedback and possibly schedule a call if I like it. In short, this means I ignore most recruiters and the ones I've spoken to have mostly been pretty pleasant.