Why does everybody assume that the goal is to advance to an exec role?
I'm sure that you were a competent recruiter, but the reality is that I don't have the time or the energy to waste on you to figure out if you are or not.
I don't assume everyone is looking to advance to an exec role - in my experience, most actually are not looking for that at all. I tend to assume people aren't looking for exec roles.
"Advance your position" could refer to improved work/life balance, more time off, remote, whatever you value. I was referring to overall position (life quality), not on an org chart. I can see how that wasn't made explicitly clear.
I do ignore the vast majority of contacts due to the sheer overload of them, I don't have the energy or time to parse through each message and see if it's worth pursuing the recruiter in the future or not.
My CV is no unicorn, I have a lot of experience in different roles and company sizes but I'm not a deep specialist or a very sought after technologist, just a decent engineer. Even then I get dozens of contacts per month, it's impossible for me to actively engage with that...
If I decided to keep some recruiters in the loop when I look for new jobs, how should I do it? I can't just answer all these contacts and filter out, are there good places to match decent professional recruiters and job-seekers? I'd love to have an ongoing relationship with a good recruiter who could match me to openings offering things like a 4-day work week, etc., but usually I'd have to go searching for these openings and then contacting the recruiters for them, how can I invert this relationship?
I feel like tech recruiting became a new gold rush, noticed it got progressively worse the past 15 years with recruiters just blasting me with spam. The increasingly higher bonuses for hiring attracted a crowd that I'm not very fond of.
If you're getting a fair amount of incoming traffic, you're already optimized for discovery, so that is working. Telling recruiters "I'm only looking for jobs that fit these parameters" and then paying attention to the ones that are respectful of that will work to start a relationship. I had some relationships for the entire 20 years I was in the business, and some of those people I didn't make a dime off for maybe 15 of those years.
If you've gone on 30 interviews and never landed one job, that might be something you need to also consider and look inward. Going 0-for-30 is pretty unusual, unless you were accepting interviews for jobs you were clearly unqualified for.