This post was inspired by three free really cool LinkedIn tools for recruiters. After watching some videos by Jeremy Roberts on the Sourcecon site, I thought I’ll pull these tools together into one blog post. I got very excited and developed on Shane Bowen’s work to create my own tool that generates one super-search tool.

A bookmarklet is like a bookmark in your browser toolbar. But it does a little bit more and is very useful.

Here are three really useful ones for LinkedIn:

First of all, LinkedIn’s very own Share on LinkedIn tool. This is a fantastic way to post any web page to LinkedIn (try it with this blog). You can create LinkedIn updates, share it with any/all groups you’re in, or even post it to individual connections. You can even use this link to post your update to Twitter.

To install the tool, simply drag and drop the link below to the toolbar.

Share on LinkedIn

Next up is a fantastically useful bookmarklet from Shane Bowen and his blog Sourcing Hacks. Imagine you are surfing the web and find someone’s name. To go straight to their LinkedIn profile, simply highlight their name and click the bookmarklet link. Shane has produced two bookmarklets, one for the normal free version of LinkedIn and one for those with a LinkedIn Recruiter account.

For a normal free account drag and drop this link – LinkedIn Search
And for a LinkedIn Recruiter drag and drop this link – LinkedIn Recruiter Search

Finally, we have a particularly useful tool for those with a free LinkedIn account and want to find a full name of a 3rd-degree connection, or indeed anyone on LinkedIn.

Before describing this, I should point out that quite some time ago I produced a YouTube video showing a Chrome extension I had developed that did this. Within a day, the lovely people at LinkedIn decided to close my account. As a result, I did not release the tool and my account was reinstated. I’m slightly nervous about mentioning this. However, I now see similar tools in various places on the web, the one I am using came from Marklets.com. I know that an alternative version has been developed and is talked about on the Sourcecon blog but given my experience with my Chrome extension, I don’t want to say too much about that.

This clever bookmarklet allows you to find the full name and connect with anyone from their profile page on LinkedIn. To avoid another problem with LinkedIn, I’m not going to directly reference the bookmarklet on my site. If you want to try it out, see Marklets.com or visit the Sourcecon blog page.

Shane’s Tools

Inspired by all this, I thought I’d develop my own tools. I really liked Shane Bowen’s LinkedIn search and I thought why stop there? I also liked Glenn’s use of a bookmarklet combiner. So I’ve developed a really simple tool that allows you to highlight any text on a web page and then search LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus or YouTube. I’ve also added in the Share on LinkedIn. Because I have no way of automatically updating this, I’d recommend you follow this blog to get updates. I’ve added a link to Shane’s Tools to make that easy too.

To install this simply drag and drop the button called Shane’s Tools to your bookmark bar/Favorites bar.

The inspiration and cleverness for this post came from a range of sourcers including Glenn Gutmacher and a hangout video he did with Jeremy Roberts and Laurie DesAutels which is available at www.sourcecon.com

There is also a video/blog with Jan Bernhart and Jeremy Roberts who, like me, was inspired by Glenn’s discussion. Shane Bowen developed the LinkedIn search tools and his blog is Sourcing Hacks. Linkedin developed the Sharing Bookmarklet and this is also available on their site www.Linkedin.com

I hope you find these tools useful. If you like my blog, please connect with me on LinkedIn or go to the Subscribe page, and I’ll be delighted to add you to my mailing list.