Every job I've had in the last 7 years has been from an employer or recruiter coming to me. Shooting off a resume through the typical HR stack is almost always a crap shoot.
If only. I wouldn't say I have companies beating down my door, I have to put my resume on monster just like anyone else. But in my experience the best job prospects come from someone finding my resume or from someone I know referring me.
If you write code and you don't have recruiters contacting you through LinkedIn, then you probably live in a city with a bad market (and you should move) or you don't have a thorough LinkedIn account.
I'd take that with a grain of salt if you (personally) only have worked in the Valley, where the job market is probably overflowing with developer positions, or NYC.
I've had one recruiter call me (at work no less!) and:
- He told me that he knows my company is a PHP shop, which it's not. We are almost 100% Perl and have never worked in PHP.
- He tried to entice me to pass the offer along to other people in the company, which I find very tactless.
