As a danish developer, recruiters are not that bad. They will usually start reaching out through LI, and will happily do the first part of the back and forth on text. I usually tell them I’m not interested in switching, but that I'd be happy to know what goes on in the industry. This usually leads to a phone call where I question them about the business, the job and what they have to offer. The one exception is, I usually don’t take the call if it’s a dedicated recruiting company, as they don’t know anything about the company they are trying to recruite me into.
I also lecture them at the end of a call sometimes. One of the more recent calls, they recruiter was looking for someone to fill “an architect position”. I asked him if he knew anything about software, and he conceded that he didn’t and that he was a psych major. I asked him if the people who told him to find an architect had told him what that entailed. They hadn’t. So I broke down three different types of architects there is in software development (code, systems and enterprise) told him he was most likely looking for a systems and what profile they could have and had a general good discussion with him. When I’m done at my current position, I have a good repor with this guys to have him find me an interesting position :)
So advice to recruiters:
1) Know what you have to offer
2) Know what you are actually looking for, even if it’s complicated. If you want to hire experienced people, seem like you know what you are talking about.
3) Proof read you written communication. You main job is to communicate and make a good first impression, but if your outreach mail/message is filled with spelling mistakes or contradictions, I’m not gonna respond.
4) Don’t try to sell me the cat in the hat. With experience come the ability to look right through your babble. If you want people like that, be open and honest. We might cut you some slack if the position is interesting enough to us ;)