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Are career search firms a good investment when looking for employment?

With use of the web, is there any reason to believe that they have unadvertised positions available? This seems to be their selling point...

Public Comments

1. Unadvertised positions will only be at the very senior executive levels, for which 99.9% are not qualified. Unless you are a director, VP, or C level type person, career search firms are a total waste of time and money. Avoid them, unless you have so much money to burn that you don't care.
2. Never pay to get a job. That's a scam and a rip-off. The employer pays people to find employees for the firm, that's how agencies get paid. No new employee, no payment. If you pay a search firm for a job, there's no guarantee they'll get you one. They have your money and that's all they wanted. Then they move on to trying to get money from the next foolish person. And yes, there are scads of unadvertised postions out there, but the search firm doesn't know about them either.