Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
Strong disagree. I've made it my policy to never work with a recruiter that isn't affiliated with the company they're hiring for. Recruiting farms like Cyber Recruiters (yuck) will do everything in their power to waste your time out of sheer incompetence and disinterest.<p>I've "doubled" my salary plenty of times through this policy.<p>But the real secret sauce is referrals. Companies always prioritize a strong referral, ignoring mediocre interview performance, and will even skip the reference checks so I don't have to bug my network.