I think of recruiters more as a &quot;realtor for my skills.&quot;<p>It&#x27;s totally OK to not use a realtor to sell your house to your coworker&#x27;s son and his new wife in rural BFE for 20k $USD.<p>When you go to sell your mcmansion in a small town suburb for $80k USD, you might have a lawyer look over the sales contract, but you might not use an agent. There just isn&#x27;t that much at risk and you probably know the person you&#x27;re selling to.<p>When you sell your house for $120k USD in a bigger city, you almost definitely use a seller&#x27;s agent and might use a lawyer. There&#x27;s more risk because it&#x27;s a bigger city and you&#x27;re playing for more money. There&#x27;s probably some negotiation involved and you don&#x27;t sell a house every day so you need to know what&#x27;s normal, what&#x27;s legal, and where hidden traps are.<p>When you sell a house for $500k USD, you sure as hell use a a seller&#x27;s agent and a title company and a lawyer and everyone reviews the contract. That&#x27;s a lot of money to not have many eyeballs on the deal and rounds of negotiation.<p>Selling your skills is like selling a house. When it&#x27;s not that much money and you trust the people you&#x27;re dealing with, you don&#x27;t need a recruiter. When you&#x27;re negotiating salary and benefits at higher tiers, you need to know what&#x27;s normal and what&#x27;s acceptable, and that&#x27;s another service a recruiter provides. They also represent you to many buyers and help you with the negotiation and feedback process. Like a real estate agent, they are a critical impersonal cutout that helps everyone maintain face during a negotiation.