I've gotten jobs in the following ways:
1) Family connection (father got me a job)
2) Personal connection (knew a guy that knew a guy)
3) Sent out totally blind resumes and got lucky with a company that wasn't even publically hiring
4) Applied to an open position and was hired
The fourth time I had headhunters hassling me. The first got me an interview at a place that looked like it was about to be torn down for scrap. The second kept trying to get me an interview but the company seemed to be unsure if they even had a position open at all - this one probably wasn't the headhunter's fault. The third got me an interview 300 miles away from my hometown the next day - after driving there starting at like 2 AM in order to meet the interview time, I got a bit lost in the foothills of Penn and ended up at the place five minutes late. The entire interview consisted of them complaining about me being late, reading my resume to me and having me say "yeah, that's right" a few times and them being totally uninterested in any elaborating I tried to do, and then showing me the door - all this took about ten minutes! I should have been wary when they weren't willing to fly me in for the interview. I don’t think I’ve ever been as angry during a job hunt as I was just then. There were a couple others that eventually gave up even trying.
The annoying part was that the headhunter interviews I DID get took months to materialize. The first week or two of the conversations with these jokers were the headhunters telling me about their amazing placement records and personal experiences, as well as repeatedly assuring me that I was on their side and giving me weak sauce interview coaching tips that I really didn’t want. One of these characters called me every morning at 7 AM to talk his company and ask me questions about myself – by about Thursday I asked him to not call me any more until he HAD a phone interview. Not call me trying to set one up – I assured him I could be free whenever – but actually had the time and day. He accused me of not putting as much effort into this as I should be but agreed – and then promptly broke his word by calling me early Monday morning to inform me that he had the vague possibility of an interview in the works. I should have cut him off then and there, but I was young and stupid - this was, after all, a whole year ago

and so I persisted. Of course it didn’t lead to me ever talking to anyone at the company – in fact, I’m not sure I ever found out what company it was or what they even made!
On the other hand, the third and fourth job I *did* get involved setting up a phone call the next day, flying me down to the plant within a week or so, showing me around for a few hours, some good face-to-face talks with management and the technical people, an in-depth technical tour of the facilities, and ended by offering me the position. So the time from first contact to sealing the deal was a matter of two or three weeks for both those jobs.
Worst part about it is, even almost a year after ceasing my job hunt, I still get calls from headhunters – only headhunters, no real companies. It would be nice to know I’m wanted if it was real companies, but I’m not convinced that these headhunters even have jobs in mind – a few seem to have been only after my personal information. And some of them have been very aggressive. The worst of them called me four times in a row during work hours. I reject all unknown calls on my personal cell at work on principle – if it’s a family or friend at an odd number and it’s important, they know to leave a quickie voice mail and I will check that. But this guy called four times in a row. At the fourth call back-to-back, I got concerned that it was a real emergency and picked up only to be greeted by one of these jokers. Aaagh.
Headhunters exist to be a barrier between you and the company. That is their only purpose – to obstruct information flow between the two in order to justify their existence. If, God forbid, I ever have to do a job hunt again, I’m going to find out what company they are representing and call them directly and attempt to establish real communications without the headhunter involved. If they refuse, then it’s probably not a place I want to end up at anyway.
Yeah. Clearly, I don't like them.