> 15. Last but not least, treating your potential hires with respect is always a winning strategy!

LOUDER, for most of the recruiters.

I gave up on working with or even responding to recruiters a good two decades ago because even then, most of them - even in the tech industry! - were of the “washed-up jock/cheerleader” variety, trying to leverage social contacts to fill slots and having absolutely no clue about anything in tech.

And I mean complete technophobes that thought HTML was a sexually-transmitted disease… no shit, I had that comment back in the 90s from one of them that had only begun working with web developers.

For the final cherry on top, if you couldn’t materially further their career or metrics, you were noise to be ignored. If they determined that you weren’t a “rock star developer”, good luck ever hearing from them again.

So I just learned to ignore them back.