Early on in my career, I put my resume out to look for another job after a layoff. Recruiters nearly called me around the clock. I expressed frustration after the third call in a row in front of my wife. She reminded me what a blessing it was to have so many people trying to get me work and so many opportunities available, most which would give me a raise.

He father struggled after layoffs to find work in his profession, with long gaps between jobs. I realized how blessed I was to be in this line of work and stopped complaining, even about the copy/paste emails.

That said, there are different levels of competency in each profession, and recruiters are just as prone to rookie mistakes and lazy work as coders are. I have the luxury of working only with good recruiters and can filter the rest easily.

I've also lived through relatively scarce times (2002) when it was hard to get a recruiter to return my calls. I can imagine that many recruiters and firms went under and know people involved in software who had to scramble to find work (myself included). That does help me appreciate the 90% of my career that work has been plentiful.