If the recruiter's marketing plan meets your requirements for a stealth search, if you get promising interviews, and if you can avoid signing a contract for exclusive representation, yes, your recruiter is doing you a favor. Having another voice sing your praises is smoother than tooting your own horn.
-- Even so, realize that the recruiter is doing himself an even bigger favor. If he finds the appropriate job orders, certainly he will book interviews for you -- why not? But when the hiring manager says that although you sound like a winner, policy requires that at least three to six qualified candidates be presented, your recruiter will move mountains to furnish them. That's how he earns his living.
DEAR JOYCE: My question is whether it's true that one should always arrive early for a job interview? -- I.F.
Here's what attorney Jeffrey G. Allen (placementlaw.com), author of an excellent new book, "Instant Interviews: 101 Ways to Get the Best Job of Your Life" (Wiley), has to say about your question:
"Forget what your motivational guru told you about arriving early. It pressures already-crazed interviewers. It makes you look like your time isn't valuable. And if you think it makes you look interested, you never spent any time on the other side of the desk looking at desperation personified. Arriving late is even worse."
So should you arrive on the dot? "Yes," Allen advises, "even if you have to wait outside, hidden from view, for a few minutes."