Linear for recruiters on Mac: templates, shortcuts and hiring work with Lazur

Linear is an issue tracker built for software and product teams. Recruiters end up in it when their company already works there. If that is you, this page covers setup on a Mac, the templates that matter for hiring, and the places where Linear gets awkward. It also shows where Lazur helps. Lazur is a voice assistant that sees your screen while you hold a key. It guides you through Linear. It does not click for you.

What Linear is and how recruiters use it

Linear tracks work as issues. Each issue has a title, a status, an owner, and a priority. For a recruiter, an issue can stand for a role, a candidate, or a request such as a scheduling task. That mapping works. It is not the mapping Linear was designed around, so expect to make choices early and stick to them.

The fit problem shows up in outside reviews. A G2 reviewer quoted by ClickUp wrote that Linear is "Not built for non-technical teams" and that it is optimized for software and product teams. ClickUp sells a competing product, so treat the quote as one opinion. It still describes the friction you are likely to notice in the first week.

Install the Linear desktop app on your Mac

Linear's download page lists a desktop app for Intel Macs and Apple silicon Macs. It also lists Windows. The page does not name a minimum macOS version, so note your version before you install. You find it through Apple menu > About This Mac.

1. Open Linear's download page at linear.app/docs/get-the-app.
2. Confirm your chip in Apple menu > About This Mac. Apple silicon and Intel both work.
3. Install the app and open it once to sign in.
4. Leave auto-update on, unless your IT team has a reason to change it.
5. If you need to turn auto-update off, copy the Terminal command from Linear's docs, read it, run it, then quit and reopen Linear.

Linear's desktop app downloads and installs updates in the background. Updates arrive without a click. Changes to auto-update take effect only after you quit and relaunch the app, so do that before you test anything. If your company manages Macs with MDM, IT can push a setting that turns auto-update off. Linear's docs cover both routes.

Set up hiring templates that save retyping

Templates do the most work for a recruiter. Linear has two kinds. A standard template sets issue properties, and it can include placeholder text. A form template asks questions. Its fields can be text, long text, dropdown, checkbox, date, or instruction. You can trigger form templates from Slack, Asks, and Linear.

Choose the scope before you build anything. Workspace templates live under Workspace settings > Templates, and they suit company-wide intake. Team templates live under Team settings > Templates. A workspace template cannot preset team labels or issue statuses. If you need those, build the template at team level.

Here is a worked example. Say you hire for several roles, and each hiring manager asks the same intake questions. Build a form template called Role intake. Add fields for role title, level, location, target start date, and interview panel. Mark the fields you cannot work without as required. Put your process steps in the instructions text. Linear copies that text into the issue description, so the hiring manager sees the steps when the issue opens.

Template mistakes that cost recruiters time

• Building a workspace template and expecting it to set team statuses. It cannot, so build a team template instead.
• Looking for a template inside a sub-issue and not finding it. Only templates that do not contain sub-issues appear there.
• Assuming a template is missing when you are on the wrong team. Check the team you are creating the issue for first.
• Trusting an old Asks template. Standard templates that used Asks fields moved to form templates. The template overflow menu offers a best-effort conversion back, so check every field after converting.
• Making a form template the default for your own team. Form templates only work as defaults for non-team members, so use a standard template there.

Map one role onto issues and sub-issues

Linear's own hiring page gives you a shape to copy. It describes five stages. The Talent team reviews applications. A recruiter, a hiring manager, or both, have early conversations. Team interviews follow. Every role includes a paid 2 to 5 day work trial. A blind vote and debrief by the project team come last. Compensation comes up on the first recruiter call, and the hiring manager makes the final call.

You can copy that structure in Linear. Make one parent issue for each candidate. Add a sub-issue for each stage that candidate reaches. Create those sub-issues from a template that has no sub-issues of its own, or the template will not show up. Log the work trial as its own sub-issue, with the brief in the description. Keep candidate names out of titles if your company policy says so.

Where the admin time goes, and what the numbers do not prove

A Totaljobs survey of 748 HR leaders found that recruiters spend an average of 17.7 hours per vacancy on administrative work. Of that, 3.6 hours go to reviewing applications, 2.5 hours to scheduling interviews, and 3 hours to processing post-interview notes. Those three tasks are the ones a tracker like Linear can touch. The source I checked does not break down the rest of the 17.7 hours.

Use these numbers with care. The survey covers UK recruiting, not Linear users. The People Management article ran on 19 August 2025, and the survey date is not stated. Totaljobs sponsored the article, and the figures are self-reported. Treat them as a sign of where time goes, not as a benchmark for your own week.

Where Linear fits and where it does not

Linear fits when hiring runs as a project with clear stages, and when engineers and recruiters share the work. It is a poor match if you need a full applicant tracker. Alfred, a vendor that sells a competing product, says Linear is not the right tool for hiring pipelines. It recommends Asana and Monday for cross-functional work. Read that as a sales view, but it names a real gap.

ClickUp says it read 170 of the most recent Linear and Jira reviews on G2, Capterra, and TrustRadius. It reports that search is a top frustration for both tools. That is a competitor's count and reading. Test search on your own candidate data before you trust it for lookups.

Keyboard shortcuts and the September 2026 desktop update

Linear's September 3, 2026 desktop changelog changed ⌘N. Now ⌘N chooses what to create based on the view you are in. The same release added native creation commands, including documents. Check what appears before you type a title, so you do not create a document by mistake.

The release also fixed ⇧⌘O. That shortcut had opened the pull request preview. Now it opens sub-issue creation, which is the one most useful for stage tracking. A second fix stops documents from opening the parent issue on desktop. The command menu now uses fuzzy search, so a partial name can still find the item.

• ⌘N: creates whatever fits the current view
• ⇧⌘O: opens sub-issue creation
• Command menu: fuzzy search finds partial names

Linear's shortcut reference did not load when this page was written. Confirm other shortcuts inside the app before you build a habit around them.

Use the priority inbox so hiring pings do not bury you

The same update added a Priority tab in the inbox. It separates notifications that need attention from those that can wait. You can customize it by source or by filter. For a recruiter, the useful split is between a hiring manager's question and an automatic status change. Set the filter so questions come first.

1. Open the inbox and select the Priority tab.
2. Choose the sources that matter most, such as comments on your candidate issues.
3. Add a filter that moves status changes into the can-wait group.
4. Check the tab at the start and end of each day, and clear the questions first.

How Lazur helps with Linear on your Mac

Lazur is a voice assistant for the Mac that lives in the notch. Hold ⌥⌘ to ask about anything on screen, and Lazur answers out loud. Ask where a button is, and Lazur draws a circle and a label around it. Ask how to do something, and Lazur guides you one click at a time, waiting for each click.

Hold fn to dictate clean text at the cursor in any app. That helps when you write a candidate note in Linear after a call. Add tricky names to your personal dictionary before you dictate, and read the text before you save it. Snippets and clipboard slots help when you paste the same interview questions into several issues.

Background research runs in Lazur's own Chrome tabs through the Lazur for Chrome extension. It returns a summary and a report. Use that for questions such as what recruiters report about admin time, and open the sources it lists before you quote anything.

Privacy and candidate data on a Mac

Candidate names, résumés, and salary talk are personal data. Check your company's policy before you share any of it with an AI tool. Lazur listens and looks at the screen only while you hold the shortcut. Audio and the screenshot go to AI providers to answer you. They are not stored, and content is never used to train AI models.

A simple habit helps. Close the candidate record before you hold the shortcut if your policy says so. Ask Lazur about a menu or a shortcut while a blank template is open. Dictate with the word candidate in place of a name when the policy asks for it. That keeps the screen and the audio free of details you do not need.

Next steps for recruiters on a Mac

Start with one role and one form template. Run it through a full hiring round before you ask the whole team to adopt it. If you want Lazur on your Mac, get it from /download. Check plan limits on /pricing before you rely on AI actions. For the wider recruiter view, see /for/recruiters. For mail follow-ups next to Linear, see /for/recruiters/gmail. For the Linear side of product planning, see /for/product-managers/linear.

What this page does not cover

No source shows recruiters using Linear's issue tracker for hiring. The recruiter workflows here come from how Linear works, not from recruiter reports. Linear's careers pages did not load, so this page does not describe Linear's own recruiting tools. No 2026 macOS release notes turned up, and the docs list no minimum macOS version. Check those before you roll Linear out to a team.