The best jobs come through word of mouth and peer-to-peer connections which you develop over the lifetime of your career. I've had mixed results with recruiters

The best jobs come through word of mouth and peer-to-peer connections which you develop over the lifetime of your career. I've had mixed results with recruiters. In the end they're in it for themselves, so have an intrinsic interest in selling a fit on both sides of the negotiation even when there might not be one. And the fees they charge can create a barrier or resent from the corporate side. Recruiters are just one kind of connection, and a very mixed bag. Cultivate relationships, try not to burn bridges, find the people whose work you admire and make professional friendships with them. Also, having been in industry long enough to see this a couple times: there's a huge difference between what recruiters do during economic downturn periods versus booms. In the down periods they end up acting as gatekeepers. In the booms they end up being the folks aggressively pushing people onto the bus. I'm sure there's a healthy median in there somewhere, but it's really tricky to find and assess a good recruiter -- especially during boom times. (We're not quite in a down time yet, but getting close).