The job hunt is cumbersome and not always fruitful. As you fill out countless applications, send off innumerable resumes, and wait, you might wish you had an assistant. You do. Recruiters aim to forge a relationship between clients (companies) and candidates like you. Recruiters are the middle men that go between the hopeful candidate and the hiring managers. Many job seekers feel they can succeed without recruitment, and in some cases they will, but there are several benefits to using a recruiter.

1. Advocacy: References are great, but oftentimes the people you knew at Company XYZ are long gone, or a previous employer is disgruntled that they lost such a fabulous employee, right? A recruiter serves as another person who can say they know you and vouch for you.
2. Access: There are more jobs than online postings and company websites tend to feature. Recruiters have access to jobs that are otherwise exclusive or confidential. By using traditional job seeking efforts, you may never know about jobs the recruiter is about to share with you.
3. Alliance: A candidate-recruiter relationship does not have to end at hire. The most professional recruiters are human resource gurus who would be happy to help answer questions for you or collaborate again, in the event of another job change.
4. Achievement: You and your recruiter will have the same goal. The hard truth is that recruiters are often not paid in full until a position is filled, and companies will continue to use a given staffing company if the candidates brought in are successful. In short, your recruiter is just as motivated by your employment and success as you are.
5. Ability: Recruiters know the specific ins and outs of everything from job descriptions to resumes and all that lingers between. Trust in this knowledge and hand the hassle over to the experts.