...unless they have everything in their CV listed on a job specification sent from a lead developer then they won't be passed through to them to review the CV..

...unless they have everything in their CV listed on a job specification sent from a lead developer then they won't be passed through to them to review the CV... Your job as a recruiter is to overcome that pretty basic obstacle. If the person you're dealing with is a HR paper pusher with no clue about tech then it's your job to convince them that the CV is something the lead dev would be interested in. One of the downsides to what we do is that a small minority of recruiters manage to get most of us a bad name, which is a shame. I'd argue it's the majority that give the industry a bad name and a minority that are doing things right.