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Bookmarklets and an updated version of Glenn Gutmacher's recent Internet Sourcing at Lightspeed presentations

If you have seen my presentations and wonder how I keep track of all the various search methods and associated boolean syntax, and how you can boost your productivity in order to do many types of recurring searches faster, then here's one of my secrets: Bookmarklets.

Bookmarklets are like web browser favorites/bookmarks on steroids. For more background, visit Bookmarklets.com (not geared to recruiting, but a good start to help you understand and apply them).

Bookmarklets don't just simply take you to a website -- they DO something beyond that, such that when you "arrive", search results have already been generated, information has been parsed, etc. It's because they have JavaScript code embedded in them. But they're safe to use on any computer (at least ours are; however, we cannot be held responsible, or provide support, for any installation difficulties or other issues that arise.). For example, drag this FindAllEmailsOnPage link into your web browser's bookmarks/favorites bar. From now on, when you visit any webpage that contains hyperlinked email addresses, click FindAllEmailsOnPage and it will automatically pull the list of email addresses for you.

Typically, a bookmarklet brings up a small prompt window asking you for certain information (e.g., search keywords, target domains or company names), and then runs everything else needed to display the results!

Bookmarklets are vital to sourcing productivity, and a key component to my "Internet Sourcing at Lightspeed" mini-seminars, and so I had to include some in my Advanced Online Recruiting Techniques course. To use them, follow the instructions below for your web browser type.

Bookmarklet Combiner is arguably the easiest way to share bookmarklets, the time-saving browser favorites/bookmarks that have Javascript embedded in them, used by many sourcers and other researchers. When you select a bookmarklet, it runs (and prompts you for any data needed). The above link lets you create your own sets, but below is how to use my starter set:
  1. In Firefox browser, (A) make sure your bookmarks bar is displaying (if not, in your main menu, go to View / Toolbars / Bookmarks bar), (B) click here (will launch in a new tab) and scroll to bottom of page. Click, hold and drag the "BATSA Bookmarklets" button up into your top bookmarks bar where you want it to be accessible and release your mouse. From now on, you just click the BATSA Bookmarklets tab in your bookmarks bar to temporarily display all the bookmarklets, and then click the one you want to run.
  2. In Microsoft Internet Explorer - sorry, MSIE is more restrictive security-wise and you cannot launch a bookmarklet set. However, you can save individual bookmarklets in a subfolder of your Favorites bar. Most will work (but probably not the bookmarklets indicated as "Multi-tab". We recommend you use another browser.
  3. In Chrome, Opera and Safari, do step #1 above (same as Firefox). The only extra thing you need to remember is when selecting one of the bookmarklets near the bottom of the list under "Multi-tab": these launch multiple browser tabs but will be blocked from doing so unless you first open a new (blank) browser tab before selecting/invoking the bookmarklet. Again, this is only necessary when using one of the multiple tab bookmarklets. The others can be selected/launched from whatever web page you happen to be on at the time.

The sets of bookmarklets below are larger and older than the Bookmarklet Combiner set above, so we cannot guarantee that all links below work as originally intended.

NOTE: Security changes released in Microsoft Internet Explorer version 7 and later make using the bookmarklets below problematic. You should use IE's own built-in version of bookmarklets ("Add Search Providers") as described elsewhere in our course instead, or to use the full range of bookmarklets below, install a different or additional web browser below (click any browser name below to launch its homepage in a new window, where the free download link is obvious).
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6
only (version 7 or later users - see NOTE paragraph above)
  1. Download the instructions (Microsoft Word doc) here and print them.
  2. Download the compressed .zip file which contains the bookmarklets here, and save it to your computer (DON'T extract/uncompress them at this point).
  3. Follow the rest of the instructions in the Word doc.
Mozilla Firefox

(Firefox is also recommended for bookmarklets if you have an Apple/Mac computer - download Firefox here and follow the steps in the installation wizard. Upon initial launch, it will ask whether to import your bookmarks from another web browser, if you have one installed. This is up to you, but you can skip it for the purposes of the bookmarklets because you will be importing them a different way below. These instructions are for Firefox v3.01 on a PC - I do not have a Mac to test this.)
  1. Save this file, seminarfirefoxbookmarklets.html, to your desktop or other convenient location on your computer/network.
  2. In Firefox, under Bookmarks menu, select Organize Bookmarks, which launches the Bookmarks Manager window.
  3. In Bookmarks Manager, under File menu, select Import. Then select From File and click Next button. Navigate to seminarfirefoxbookmarklets.html, highlight it and click Open button. (The bookmarklets will have imported.)
  4. In the Bookmarks Manager window, click on the Seminar folder icon, hold down the mouse, and drag it up and to the left directly onto the Bookmarks Toolbar folder icon.
  5. Close the window to return to the main Firefox browser window. You should see a folder icon called Seminar on your top (bookmarks) toolbar. Click to open the subfolder and your bookmarklets are ready for use!
  6. If you do not see the bookmarks toolbar, then go under the View menu, select Toolbars, and see if a checkmark appears before Bookmarks Toolbar. If not, click on Bookmarks Toolbar to do so and now you will see the Seminar icon there.
Opera
  1. Download the compressed .zip file which contains the bookmarklets here, and save it to your computer.
  2. Extract/uncompress all files in the zip (make sure "use folder names" checkbox is selected) and save to your desktop or other convenient location. This will create a folder called Seminar with some subfolders in it.
  3. In the File menu of Opera, select Import and Export -> Internet Explorer Favorites. Navigate to the Seminar folder (the top-level Seminar folder) and select it to import.
  4. In the Bookmarks menu of Opera, select Manage Bookmarks. You will see a folder called Internet Explorer Favorites.
  5. Right mouse click on that folder and select Properties. Rename it Seminar (or some other logical name).
  6. In the View menu of Opera, select Toolbars -> Personal Bar (if it is not already checked/displayed)
  7. Drag the Seminar bookmarklets folder to your Opera personal toolbar. Now you can conveniently access any bookmarklets by clicking on the Seminar icon atop your browser and selecting the desired bookmarklet within the expandable menu of Seminar subfolders
  8. You may wish to rename the subfolders to more logical category names (rather than the numbers) using the method in step 5.
Safari, Netscape, Flock, Thunderbird, etc.
  • The Safari browser (was Apple/Macintosh-only up to v3, now also available for Windows computers) is a bit tricky. We recommend you follow the Mozilla Firefox instructions to the left.
  • Netscape, Flock and Thunderbird users should be able to install and run the Firefox version of the bookmarklets (see steps under Mozilla Firefox).
The above is a one-time procedure (should take less than five minutes) and then you'll have them forever! These are the bookmarklets that I use most often in recruitment sourcing. Subfolder #1 is actually a set of downloadable search engine toolbars, but they do some things that bookmarklets do (plus some handy features unrelated to bookmarklets), so I think they're worth having. But again, you cannot hold Recruiting-Online.com responsible for any issues related to our bookmarklets.

P.S. If you want to understand the context in which I use bookmarklets, feel free to view or download my PowerPoint presentation (version presented at SourceCon 2007 - Global Sourcing Conference - in Atlanta, GA).


Note that you can organize (move or copy) bookmarklets just like favorites, so if you'd like to rearrange them, feel free. The easiest way is to open up your Favorites --> Links folder on your desktop: Double-click My Computer, then C:\ drive, then Documents and Settings, then Favorites (note: this path may vary, depending on how your computer is configured). I recommend you create subfolders within your Links folder named Resume Search, Blog Search, etc., and you can drag relevant bookmarklets and other favorites into the appropriate folders.

This becomes increasingly valuable as your bookmarklets collection increases over time. To get new bookmarklets, ask your tech-savvy recruiting peers, or search for bookmarklet (plus other relevant keyword) on a search engine and you will find many more! Usually, you add new bookmarklets one of a few ways: