Some great points here especially the point of getting lured in by big names like facebook and google as a benchmark for great salespeople. You want to hire someone you know can build from nothing and not rely on reputation alone.
What i will add however is those companies can be a great educational ground point early on in ones career to develop good habits and processes.
Expand your services to cover services other than cable companies e.g. e-commerce delievery enquiries. Then make it as easy for me as sending a text/sms on my phone to activate and you could be onto something.
As someone who works specifically recruiting for Startups and i have worked with some pretty fast growing ones the main challenges any of these startups is helping recruiting "passive candidates". What i mean by passive candidates is someone who is not actively looking for a job.
I believe a platform will come that does cut out the middleman and i am actually working on a few ideas but the harsh reality good companies want the best talent and that talent isn't always looking for a job.
Referral apps are a great way to attack the problem but i do not believe will be the only angle.
As much as i agree that recruiters can be annoying getting the right recruitment/recruiter help can be the most amazing leverage tool for your startup and to be honest this comes across really childish. That said recruitment is ripe for disruption.
