Do you like recruiters? Do you use them? It's almost impossible not to use them these days when looking for a job. So many of the listings on online job boards are from recruiters and many have deals to place people, so chances are you'll at least deal with on even if they don't get you a job.

In many ways recruiters are in a great position. They can save time during the hiring process and make it easy for non-technical people to find good, qualified technical talent. However most of them don't do that, barely screening people and just sending along resumes that meet xx% of the requirements for the job, hoping one candidate will get the job and they'll get paid.

But they're not all that bad and some of the corporate recruiters actually do a good job finding people for their employers. And there are some good private ones as well. I'm actually trying to solve some of the problems with recruiters with some friends and hopefully we'll have a company one day that can help DBAs find jobs.

I was interested when I came across this list of things that you shouldn't do when contacting a recruiter. It's from a Microsoft recruiter and it's a pretty good list. It's more applicable to a corporate recruiter since some of the private ones I've dealt with would encourage you to lie if it got them paid, but I think for a corporate recruiter this makes sense.

A recruiter is often the person in the middle and doesn't have an agenda. Whether you get the job or not, they still have other people to find, for your job or another. So treat corporate recruiters well, don't annoy or pester them, and they can be a great advocate for you with the hiring manager. Granted you still have to pass the interview and get the job, but being in their early and getting the interview help.

I know hiring managers that have tossed resumes out unread because the recruiter mentioned someone was a jerk.