You’re Doing It Wrong:  7 Essential Hacks for Google Chrome

If you’re still using Internet Explorer (IE), stop reading right here.  Go grab your pager and your Rolodex, and set the flux capacitor for 1998.  If you’re like the rest of the world, you realized almost two decades ago that IE has some serious flaws, and has been under attack by competing browsers, all of which are faster, less buggy, and more feature rich.  

Today, recruiting is highly competitive competitive and technology costs are falling rapidly.  Your ability to perform targeted, deep research, quickly and accurately, is no longer a competitive advantage, it is a requirement.  If you aren’t leveraging the best, new, free technology, you’re doing it wrong.  If you want to supercharge your browsing, research, speed, and ultimately productivity, I STRONGLY suggest that you switch to Google Chrome.  

If you already made the switch, great!  Here’s a list of 8 free extensions and hacks for Google Chrome that I use every day to be a better recruiter:  

1. Autotext Expander – Stop writing the same emails over and over.  Autotext Expander allows you to create keywords which are automatically substituted for saved text immediately when you type them.  Instead of writing and rewriting the same email to candidates you source on a job board (like Monster, for example), you just type a configured keyword (such as “monster1” in this case), and Autotext Expander will instantly substitute your keyword with the full saved text.  It even supports HTML, so you can add style components and links (like a job posting or formatted email signature).  This simple tool can save you hours of typing every week.  

2. Tab Counter – Various versions are available but essentially Tab Counter shows you a quick count in the corner of the browser of the number of tabs and windows you have open in Chrome.  Useful for keeping track of the approximate number of profiles you have open when you are sourcing and opening candidate profiles in their own tab for later review.  Some versions also have a feature to give you a dropdown list of the tabs you have open across the top.   

3. Linkedin Recruiter Search – Short and sweet; this simple plugin adds a search option to the right-click context menu to search the selected text in Linkedin Recruiter.  Incredibly quick and useful when researching candidates and saves a lot of keystrokes.  

4. IEtab – Let’s face it, not everyone in the world has caught up with technology.  Even today many company websites and web applications are simply not optimized for multiple browsers.  There are still developers out there (especially those who work in the Microsoft technology stack) that have a Promethean relationship with Internet Explorer and all it’s quirks.  Enter IETab, a free Chrome extension that allows you to spawn an instance of Internet Explorer directly within a tab inside Chrome.  Useful for viewing content that is not optimized to play nicely with the open web (like some candidate resumes, code samples, ATS/CRM systems, etc.) without changing browsers.   

5. Pin Tab – This is a built-in but little used feature of Chrome that allows you to “pin” a tab to the left side of the tabs bar and removes the text and close button.  Useful for keeping your all-day productivity tabs (like calendar, mail, ATS, Linkedin) open but out of the way.  

6. Bookmark Folders and “Open all . . .” – Chrome has a built-in feature to create folders on the bookmarks bar.  Use this handy feature to organize your bookmarks into folders by functional area such as Productivity Tools, Sourcing, Social Media, Personal, etc.  Supercharge this feature by right clicking on a bookmarks folder icon and selecting “Open all bookmarks” which will open all the bookmarks in the folder in a new tab.  Useful for quickly opening all the tabs you use regularly with a single click.   

7. Reopen closed tab – Another awesome built-in feature of Chrome.  Just closed a candidate profile or another important webpage by accident?  No problem!  Just right click on an empty portion of the tab bar and select “Reopen closed tab." Chrome will reload the last closed page automatically with a single click – no need to run the search or navigate back to the page again.

In case you weren't already convinved to switch, Chrome is the lightest, fastest, cloud enabled, cross platform browser ever.  It works on any OS including Windows, OSX, Linux, iOS, and Android, and with a Google profile it will carry your bookmarks, passwords, and browser history across all your devices.  It integrates seamlessly with Gmail and Gcal (if you’re not using these too, you’re also doing it wrong, but this is for another post), and it boasts a catalog of thousands of free and paid extensions (in addition to those mentioned above) that offer unrivaled customization and productivity enhancements to boost your success as a recruiter.