I don't understand why more tech recruiters don't ruthlessly specialize and laser-focus on building a deep understanding of a particular niche when matching candidates and employers.
I'm CTO of a web and mobile development shop with about 20 employees. Finding good frontend developers is REALLY hard - to be a great frontend guy these days, working on modern web apps, you need to have strong engineering chops, with knowledge of the html5 apis, css3 and serious JS experience, including an understanding of memory and performance management in large frontend-heavy apps; ideally have worked on a couple of medium size apps with 5-7 person teams; probably have at least some exposure to the current JS framework scene; ideally (for our stack) have experience with preprocessors like sass or stylus and coffeescript; have good design sense and the ability to work in a collaborative feedback loop with a designer, etc etc. It's a really cross-functional role. There's a lot more people who "know HTML and CSS" but have never worked on serious apps, or have solid JS chops but can't produce design with reasonable fidelity to save their lives.
A relationship with a recruiter who understood this "candidate profile" and could bring me people who would be a good fit, not just resumes with "HTML", "CSS", "Javascript" and "5 years of experience" on them, would be worth its weight in gold.
As a fellow CTO with a much smaller team I can offer some advice that may just be interesting to think about if nothing else.
I'd remove the requirements of html5 apis, css3, sass, etc, as well as "current JS frameworks". They are all things that can be learned in a weekend by someone able. Your only job is to find the able ones.
I'd also reconsider the search for someone with serious js chops and also the ability to design. That sounds like 2 separate positions to me.
That would only make sense if he was significantly increasing his work force (25%, 50%, etc.) to "out save" the ~20% standard fee's on first year salaries for contingent staffing firms. Though I get your point on the "weight in gold," however, seems like he needs a strong internal recruiter to get his/her chops with the culture, team and technology.
Their are a few "boutique" shops around (mostly Silicon Valley) who are fairly technical and can actually understand the requirements of the client, but, they are still on a contingent (so many firms / many candidates) which still comes down a style of "spray and pray."
Most recruiting firms can't specialize (or refuse) in a niche due to the need to "branch out" to keep the money coming in, hence the all encompassing "IT staffing" agencies.
Not fun, I'd love to work in a boutique / specialized model myself as a former (and probably soon to be again) technical recruiter.
I'm CTO of a web and mobile development shop with about 20 employees. Finding good frontend developers is REALLY hard - to be a great frontend guy these days, working on modern web apps, you need to have strong engineering chops, with knowledge of the html5 apis, css3 and serious JS experience, including an understanding of memory and performance management in large frontend-heavy apps; ideally have worked on a couple of medium size apps with 5-7 person teams; probably have at least some exposure to the current JS framework scene; ideally (for our stack) have experience with preprocessors like sass or stylus and coffeescript; have good design sense and the ability to work in a collaborative feedback loop with a designer, etc etc. It's a really cross-functional role. There's a lot more people who "know HTML and CSS" but have never worked on serious apps, or have solid JS chops but can't produce design with reasonable fidelity to save their lives.
A relationship with a recruiter who understood this "candidate profile" and could bring me people who would be a good fit, not just resumes with "HTML", "CSS", "Javascript" and "5 years of experience" on them, would be worth its weight in gold.