The Recruiters Toolkit: A collection of 46 Chrome Extensions for Sourcing

You may want to sit down for this one – it will change_your_life.  There is a brand new world of tools for us that increases productivity, decreases time-to-hire, and increase quality-of-hire. These mysterious tools are called Google Chrome Extensions.  Chrome extensions can prove to be a wonderful addition to any recruiters toolkit, if integrated properly. Unfortunately, chrome extensions can also be a massive time suck which is why we’ve decided to outline 46 of the best extensions the RecruitingTools community loves to use.

The Matrix of Chrome Extensions

Ok, all sarcasm aside, finding the right mix of extensions will absolutely give you some time back, and make sourcing, recruiting, employment branding and marketing quite a bit easier.  Extensions definitely have more impact than what the nay-sayers have to say about “those extensions.”  It’s possible extensions created trauma for folks stuck in their ways. Sometimes, it’s easier to use a quick tool you know produces 90%+ of the same results versus using “tried and true” best practices, it’s a basic prioritization decision (disclaimer: mad respect to industry leaders, but sometimes old-school logic seems, well, not logical).

In the last nine months, I’ve researched, tested, and evaluated more extensions than a normal person should, and pulled together what I lovingly deem GSD: A Talent-Pro’s Chrome Extension Guide.  If GSD is foreign, you’ll be enlightened by this definition.

Combining Chrome extensions bodes well for workarounds and increasing efficiency. Let me rephrase this: we all do more with less and are running, errr, sprinting to keep up, so simplifying life seems like a natural solution.  I promise, tested Chrome extensions are not trying to harm us or our industry, so just download and download and…

With any luck, this Toolkit will add a few extra hours to your day.  With no further ado, let’s review…

Extensions No One Should EVER Live Without

• ProductHunt: Hunt for inspiration, creativity and keep up with new products and possible disruptions to our industry.
• Sortd for Gmail: Organize your gmail life, more user-friendly than expected.
• Dropbox for Gmail: Have Dropbox?  Add the extension.  It makes sending years of files to your sourcing and recruiting buddies so much easier.
• Streak: A top-notch email tracking, mail-merging, template building and CRM all-in-one.  Since we have additional tools to stalk, I mean research, candidates, Streak has the most robust features.
• Pocket: How much content do we try to keep up on while at work?  Save articles for later.  There’s an app for that, too.

 Recruiting and Sourcing

• Prophet: Prophet finds email addresses and uses smart technology to guess if a person has no social footprint. Plus, it gets better every week.
• Connectifier: Find emails for anyone.  Best return comes from LinkedIn and Twitter searches.
• Email Hunter:  Hello company email directory! Visit a site and get a list of their email addresses directly in your browser.
• Thrust.io:  “Quickly find anyone’s email at any startup.”  Enough said.
• Mentor-Social Talent:  If you aren’t addicted, you will be.  First, sign up on socialtalent.co, download the extension and source like a champ.
• WhoWorksAt:   Know who you’re connections are working at a company just by visiting their company site.
• Search Bar:  A power search for just about anything.
• Import.io: Create awesome sourcing lists, similar to Scraper, but easy with a magic button.  Sign up then add the “magic” bookmarklet.
• Discover.ly: connect with your team to view everyone’s collaborative connections.
• Archively: A candidate CRM/database ideal for start-ups.  Create an account, download the chrome extension and their API directly uploads candidates from the web into the database.

Creative and Recruitment Marketing

• Pinterest: Personal and employment branding on Pinterest is gaining momentum by the week.  The Pin Button lets you pin articles, decks, and much more.
• Canva:  Need to create something quickly but aren’t a perfect designer?  The extension keeps it easy to jump in and out.
• Search by Image:  Find the source of any image plus find perfect images for any project.
• TweetDeck Launcher: Click. Launch. Source and research.
• Buffer:  Ahhh, Buffer.  The extension simplifies social content extension even more.  
• Grammarly: Don’t get caught with poor grammar (nervous just writing that).  Download the extension.
• RiteTag:  Know your #hashtags mean something to the Twitterverse based on color-coating.

Chrome Extensions for Productivity

• Silencer: Mute people, phrases, hashtags, and more on Twitter and Facebook to keep unnecessary distractions at bay.
• YouTube AdBlock: It’s true!  Liberate yourself from YouTube ads.
• AdBlock:  General AdBlock is available, too.
• Evernote Clipper:  Effortlessly add info into Evernote sans toggling back-and-forth or copy-and-paste.
• Momentum:  Keep yourself on task with a minimalistic background, reminders and inspiration to GSD.
• Evernote Clipper:  Easily add info directly to Evernote.  Save yourself time and headache.
• Hangouts:  Jumping from call to meeting to Hangouts. Use the start extension to join the meeting that began – crap – five minutes ago.
• Bit.ly:  Shorten your links with the press of an extension.
• Pushbullet:  Text, IM, etc from your computer, keeping all communication streamlined versus loading your purses and pockets with four devices.

Miscellaneous Must-Have Chrome Extensions

• Check My Links:  Ensure all hyperlinks work before pushing content live.
• Save As PDF:  Just as the name implies, save any web page as a PDF.
• Clipular: Easily cut graphics, text – you name it – from any web site. Free yourself from cut-and- paste, ‘save image as’, etc.
• Print Friendly:  Print any web page without annoying banners or ads.
• OneTab:  Are you slightly obsessed and having CPU issues?  Install this friendly performance enhancer.
• The Great Suspender:  Automatically disable un-used extensions and increase your CPU.
• Ghostery:  Decide who can and can’t follow your behavior or web site; safety for you site and personal data.
• MyPermissions:  Clean up any Chrome crap that is taking up space instead of taking up space.
• Extensify: All your extensions kept in one place, plus you can quickly enable or disable any extension.
• @deandacosta:  Ok, he’s not an extension, but he’s a Master-of-Tools who knows which extensions rock our world.

I hope you find this toolkit proves useful and you get some time back. A wise man once said, moderation is key, so an obsessive, extension-only lifestyle isn’t recommended. Formulate an extension toolkit perfect for you. It’s your turn to chime in!  Which extensions improve your workday?  Tell us how work extended beyond the web page onto a toolbar.

In the meantime, go forth and Extension-away.

Here is a playlist of RecruitingTool videos (not mentioned above as extensions) to keep you even more busy

[youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmrWwr-eg1w&list=PL17581B0487FC88F3″ width=”500″ height=”300″]

About the author

Marie Burns is a Boston based talent acquisition and management, culture, and organizational development leader who rapidly scales companies, primarily startups and mid-sized orgs, through strategic programs, motivating teams and executing fresh innovative ideas. She is consistently referred to as a “hired gun”​ (no pun intended). She founded TalentAmp in 2014 to accelerate, empower and train entrepreneurs, start-ups, hiring managers and recruiters on how to effectively hire the best and knock their hiring strategy out of the park.

Marie speaks at national and local conferences, panels and coaches young entrepreneurs in the Northeast, from high school to post Bachelor’s. She is published with some of the cool kids such as The Muse, Mashable, Forbes and the likes.

By Marie Burns