I agree that we should be thankful that our skills are in such high demand, and aggressive recruiters are just a sign of that. That said, I've seen my fair sha

I agree that we should be thankful that our skills are in such high demand, and aggressive recruiters are just a sign of that. That said, I've seen my fair share of horror stories with bad recruiters. I think the award for "worst recruiter ever" goes to one who blasted a developer Meetup mailing list, then (upon being told off by the group) proceeded to harass them and send death treats to them, copying the entire mailing list (eg "I will be waiting for you on Monday morning at <your office address> ready to push you off the balcony). That was certainly an extreme example, but unfortunately there are enough recruiters that, even if bad apples are relatively rare, everyone has had horror stories, just by the sheer number alone. The bad recruiters are the most visible because they're the ones who send generic spam and blast developer lists, whereas the good recruiters contact fewer people and are more personal and targeted in their approach. In other words, a person is more likely to interact with bad recruiters, not necessarily because most recruiters are bad, but because the bad ones interact with more people.