Good people and good employers are out there in more than satisfactory numbers. If employers want those good people, the surest way to get them is to list and interview for positions themselves. Workers searching for work already know direct listings are preferable. Specialized agencies with low turnover are well worth their higher fees, but they're not common.

An employer who uses boiler-room agencies to look for help misses out on prime prospects, and can end up with the agency's dregs: joyless workers who came your way only after being run once too often through the agency's soak cycle. But then, if you use contract-to-hire, you get what you deserve.