You might be thinking, “what is a bookmarklet?”  Well, it is a small piece of JavaScript code that is stored as a bookmark in a web browser.  This code typically allows users to interact with the currently loaded web page or the page it will be going to in some way.

I am offering to share 6 bookmarklets that I created (and one that was found).  I created them with the help of Mr. Coles’ Bookmarklet Creator.  You can enter JavaScript and then hit “Convert to bookmarklet.”  With the help of the Creator, the following bookmarklets were created:

X-Raying LinkedIn

As recruiters, we have all used Google or Bing to X-Ray LinkedIn.  For those who may not know, X-Raying is using a search engine to do Boolean searches on pages on a specific site.  For example, searching on LinkedIn for profiles in the Twin Cities for specific skill-sets.  I do this enough that I wrote a couple recruiting bookmarklets…using Google or Bing to X-Ray LinkedIn.

Quick Terminology and Acronym Searches

If you are new to IT recruiting (for example) there are a lot of terms and acronyms.  The same for medical recruiting as well.  For ease, I created a two bookmarklets to search for IT terms and one for medical terms.

Miscellaneous Recruiting Bookmarklets

The sixth recruiting bookmarklet I created was for searching a section of LinkedIn that will give you some information and insights.  When you click the bookmarklets and it asks for search term, you can enter “java” (for example).  Then I like checking “Where they work” and “What they’re skilled at”.  Under “What they’re skilled at”, you can select one other skill from the list and it seems to act as an AND statement (lowering the result numbers).  But if you add more than one skill by clicking, it will increase the number of results (so it acts like OR statements among the clicked skills).  You can also click on the spyglass next to “Where they live” and add locations and see how the insights change.  This may give you an idea of what companies to recruit from and perhaps related skills these people may have.  You could even search universities and see where people with a certain skill go for work and further refine the search by what years they attended college (to simulate a rough age grouping).  Kind of a neat tool I just started playing with.

I am also including a bookmarklet that I once found called “highlight.”  You know how sometimes it is really hard to find terms on a web page?  Granted, you could hit Control-F and you could do a search.  Many browsers let you highlight the occurrences.  But what if you wanted to highlight more than one term?  This bookmarklet will highlight more each time you use it.  The highlighting will stay until you reload the web page.

How to Get Them In Your Browser and Use Them

To get these on your browser, please SAVE and then IMPORT the following HTML file into your browser – Bookmarklets.html

Alternatively, click into the above file and drag each of the recruiting bookmarklets into your bookmarks toolbar.

All seven of the recruiting bookmarklets will work by highlighting a term or terms on the web page you are on and then clicking the bookmarklet.  If no terms are selected, the bookmarklet will open a box asking for the terms you want.

For the dictionaries, enter a single term like “python” or “BSN” or whatever you wanted to look up.

For the LinkedIn X-Rays, you can enter multiple keywords and full Boolean search strings.  I also created them for my area (Twin Cities) and entering “Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area” is a pain, so I made that the default.

For the LinkedIn research tool, I suggest entering only one keyword.

How to Modify the Location on the X-Ray Bookmarklets

To change the default area to something you want, please open javascriptcode.txt.  Then cut and paste this code directly into Mr. Coles’ Bookmarklet Creator.  Look for “%22Greater+Minneapolis-St.+Paul+Area%22” and change this to whatever location you want.  For example, if you wanted to change it to Boston…you need to find out what LinkedIn calls the area.  In this case, Boston is called “Greater Boston Area.”  So then you would change “%22Greater+Minneapolis-St.+Paul+Area%22” to “%22Greater+Boston+Area%22”.  That is it…hit “Convert to bookmarklet” and you are done.  Just move the “this link” to your bookmarks toolbar to save it and then go in and edit the bookmark.  Change the name to something you would recognize and then it is there for you whenever you need it.

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Eric Putkonen is a public speaker / presenter and he is passionate about recruiting / talent acquisition & retention, culture & employment brand, engagement, and leadership (which affects all of the prior).