Great article. I've recruited engineers and worked with much more experienced recruiters. Before LinkedIn, they used to "smile and dial", which was just going down a list of numbers at a company trying to get names and positions to recompose the org chart. If the recruiter was a woman, she would often pretend to be someone's wife to get past reception, and once reception passed her on, she could strike up a conversation, and potentially get passed to someone who was looking for a job.