How to get noticed by recruiters?

I asked a headhunter this once and got a kind of interesting answer, she basically said they pay for the most expensive version of LinkedIn that lets them search by all sorts of filters and keywords. So what matters most?

• Years of total experience (if the job requires 5+ years, kinda obvious to screen on that)
• Time at current job/title - (longer the better chance someone would or should move)
• Education (threshold requirements, but they can screen by schools if the client cares)
• Location (I think you can tell LinkedIn multiple cities you would work, but many firms don't want to relo someone if they don't have to)
• Keywords (like getting as many buzz words in your headline, summary, and for each job/item matters)

Keep in mind that recruiter firms generally only work on experienced hires, generally 5+ years min experience or time since graduation. So, if you haven't hit 5 yrs yet, you may not get tons of traffic, after 5+ and especially 10+, that changes. If you switch jobs a lot and have short 'stints' at many places, that can hurt. If you profile seems incomplete or just shitty, that will hurt. Remember that a search firm is working on behalf of the client, for big bucks typically, they won't want to give a name to someone who has a shitty profile, it makes them look bad.

I've heard that activity on LinkedIn can make you likely to appear higher in searches, that sounds logical, but I have no proof it matters with search firms and internal recruiters use their tools. I suspect their search features overpower the algorithms, but I don't know.

Still better to network directly, my firm will use search firms but generally likes to try with network first before we commit to paying a fee (plus its time consuming).

Final random point, have a professional headshot, simple mistake but I can see how a screener would reject a profile on the basis of it.