You would need to be blind not to notice that tech recruiting firms are now tending to hire young and attractive female rookie recruiters, which is an obvious strategy (similar to the so-called “booth babes” at trade shows) to get the attention of the predominantly male tech audience.  Some of the LinkedIn recruiter profile photos border on racy, and perhaps sad.  I should confess here that I too use a LinkedIn profile photo, which is probably best described as smug (included below, for science).

Since I started blogging I have been regularly approached by readers living hundreds of miles away asking if I know a recruiter in their geography that might be able to help them find new work.  For every ten people that hate on recruiters, there are at least a couple that see value.  Many tech pros complain that they are only being approached by the aforementioned 22 year old crowd with an average six months of recruiting experience, sending canned messages with a pretty LinkedIn profile photo.  How much solid career advice can you get from a new liberal arts or PE grad who was waiting tables until a couple months ago?  Very little, and I should know – because that was me 15 years ago (except Economics and bartender).

I deal with internal recruiters that work at my client companies, but readers want intros to people who do what I do.  These internal recruiters only represent their company, whereas agency recruiters like me can provide several job opportunities.  Instead of just replying with “Sorry, I don’t really know anyone in your area”, I thought I’d provide some thoughts on methods to find someone you will want to work with in your job search.
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