I still get recruiters randomly messaging me. However they're all looking for someone to move laterally, not up. This wasn't the case when I was more junior. Much like salary I find myself wondering if there isn't a limit to finding new opportunities without networking.
There might be. I don't know. I've been approached by recruiters, told them point blank "not what I'm looking for, here's what I want", and they just pointed me to those opportunities instead.
So I think part of the answer is clearly saying what you want. I don't know if that holds for positions like Director /VP at large tech companies - these are always somewhat political - but it seems to hold up to pretty much right before that.
YMMV, of course. For all I know, I accidentally have the right magic keywords in my LinkedIn or something. (I don't know. I only update it every few years, so I certainly am not paying enough attention to tell :)
”(...) they're all looking for someone to move laterally, not up”
That’s probably safer for them. IME many recruiters doesn’t really have enough knowledge about the role they are trying to recruit for, so it would probably be very risky for them to try to find a ”rough diamond” since they are not really able to make such a judgement call with high enough chance of succeeding.
People who recruit. I get messages from recruiters who are direct employees of the companies they recruit for, self-employed recruiters and recruiters for contracting shops. Probably a variety of others, too.
