Wallpaper: how ‘the next big thing’ fades

Remember social recruiting? It was huge in 2010. Big. Awe-inspiring. Going to change the face of recruiting as we knew it, and of course eliminate all other recruiting methods.

As CareerXRoads says, it is no longer tracked separately in their Source of Hire report because it is ‘foundational’ and influences all sources of hire.

In other words, it’s wallpaper. It’s part of the background, another part of the overall recruiting landscape, as common as texts, phones, and ATSs.

When a trend becomes wallpaper, that doesn’t mean it’s not important. It doesn’t mean that it lacks impact or importance. It simply means that it takes its place in the big picture. It doesn’t obliterate the big picture. It doesn’t eliminate all other elements in the picture. It simply becomes part of the picture.

Think about mobile. I doubt you can find anyone who would argue that mobile is unimportant in recruiting. But I also suspect that you would be hard pressed to find a hiring manager or recruiter that was willing to give up all other recruiting tools and focus on mobile-exclusive options. It just wouldn’t make sense. Mobile is also now recruiting wallpaper. It’s part of the picture.

So what’s my point? Just that we (myself included) sometimes get fixated on the new shiny thing with the big promise. The amazing tool that will make all others obsolete. We hope for the silver bullet that will solve our problems, instead of focusing on incremental and fundamental improvement to the methods that are proven to work.

Am I saying to ignore trends? No. But a grain of salt can be useful!

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