I use Model Mayhem, but it's a bit hit & miss. I have to spend ages trawling through the mobile phone cam shots of pouting naked teens in their bedrooms to get to the serious models.  I don't mind new models who haven't yet got a portfolio, but I won't employ anyone who has text speak on their profile page. KthanxBai.    It's been my experience that if they're not professional enough to write a few simple lines about themselves properly, then they're not professional enough to turn up/be on time.  I have found some very good make up artists on Model Mayhem though.

I often use Model Mayhem's casting call facility, and have had better success that way. I ask that they send me an email via MM rather than just registering their interest on the casting call. That weeds out lots of time wasters.

I don't know how many of you venture into the 'Shout Box' on MM, but I wrote this to make it easier to use.  Its a little tray application that converts MM's Shout Box into a more normal chat window (only works on Windows at the moment):

http://davidgilder.com/misc/SBChat/SBChat-1.1.2.zip

Just make sure you shut down the tray app when you are done, someone told me they thought it was keeping their computer from going to sleep.

This is what it should look like if it is working correctly:  http://davidgilder.com/misc/SBChat/SBChat.jpg