Let me tell you about the illusion of explanatory depth and how it relates to recruitment.

We all know how to use a laptop, right?

I'm sitting here typing away, the keys clunking in a satisfactory way and letters appear on my screen.

The keyboard is plugged into my laptop, exchanging data through the USB port.

The laptop computerates interfacing the hardware and the software to bedazzle my LinkedIn with a post.

The wotsit and the doodah turn my mechanical taps into wordage on my OLED screen.

An OLED screen which works through electrics, flinging pixels at my retinae with magic and pizzazz.

That's it. That's the limit of my 8.43am knowledge.

Knowledge that is more than sufficient to write this post, but with little enough of how a laptop actually works.

Which is, on a surface level, exactly what the illusion of explanatory control is.

In many situations, we learn just enough to know how to do something.

With little reason to learn more.

Yet panic ensues if a laptop works oddly or not at all.

Fear not - try turning it off and on again - this works for mysterious reasons?

With that in mind, tell me how I recruit.

All recruitment is the same?

'Six CVs by Tuesday at 11.47am and 13 seconds, and no you can't talk to the hiring manager'

Just like the magic of OLED, those CVs hit your retinae and never disappoint?

What can you tell me about my approach to candidate engagement and experience? Why does it matter?

How I access the market through different channels?

I just stick an advert up, after a quick copypasta, and watch the hundreds of applications come in, right?

Applications that are definitely candidates whose CVs get sent through without nary a qualification?

What reason would there be to prequalify out people who were never right for a vacancy, especially when that's work you'll never experience?

What goes on in the 80-100 hours of work that leads to three excellent candidates, and not 6 CVs with words that sometimes match?

What steps lead to a 100% fill rate and 4-year+ retention?

Luck, smoke and mirrors or a definable, repeatable process?

What's the difference between transactional and non-transactional?

If all you know of recruitment is what you see - the evidence of a call, a CV or a message - and you have to make assumptions to answer these simple questions...

Then you suffer from the illusion of explanatory depth.

All well and good if your vacancies are filled straightforwardly.

If they aren't filled straightforwardly and you proclaim loudly that you know how recruitment works - without knowing how recruitment works, why it is the way it is, and why that matters.

Well, that's just Dunning Kruger.

Not all recruitment is the same.