Job Scraping With Proxies To Find The Best Opportunities

There’s never been a better time to apply for a job. Many employers are falling over themselves to offer higher wages and more benefits to fill empty positions. If you’re looking to switch careers, it’s the perfect time.

Of course, you want to make sure your job search leads you to the best opportunities possible. That’s why you need to do your research — which is where job scraping comes in.

Job scraping is the process of web scraping job postings to collect information and spot trends. With the right job scraping tools, you can learn anything you want to know about the positions you want. Here’s what to know about job research, job scraping, and how to scrape job sites effectively and safely to find the opportunities that matter to you.

Why Web Scraping Job Postings Is a Great Idea

When you’re looking for jobs, you’re not just trying to find a place to spend your days. You’re really looking for the best offer. When you work, you’re selling your time and energy to the highest bidder.

You want to find an employer that’s willing to pay you what your time and expertise are worth. If you’re serious about finding the best possible job, you need to do your research.

That kind of research can help you learn a lot about potential workplaces. For example, you can learn things like:

Insight into market compensation rates

The most basic job detail you need to learn is how much it pays. Similar jobs at two different companies can offer dramatically different pay rates, though. If you want to understand average market rates for a job, it’s not enough to just look at the first page or two of results on a job website.

Companies can and do pay to have their positions ranked higher on these sites. Instead, you need to do in-depth research to learn the actual average pay rate.

Pay isn’t the only way you can be compensated. Insurance and other benefits are an essential part of many compensation packages. Whether you’re researching potential new careers or you’re just getting a new job, it’s worthwhile to study the benefits companies offer for different positions.

You might be surprised at what you find. Companies willing to pay to have their jobs ranked more highly may be saving money elsewhere by offering low salaries. When you research jobs effectively, you can see what you’re actually worth to different businesses and find the best opportunities for you.

Geographic differences

Depending on where you live, the pay and benefits available to you could vary wildly. Skills that aren’t in demand in your current location could be valued much more highly in another city. With the proper research tools, you can learn about the compensation rates in states and cities around the country.

That knowledge can help you make decisions like whether to move or accept a specific job. You’re in a better position to negotiate with hiring teams when you have this kind of data, too.

Important keywords

Finally, when you’re applying to jobs, you need to write a resume that meets employer expectations. Many job postings will include the keywords that hiring companies want to see in your application. When you research jobs in advance, you can spot common keywords and skills.

Once you know the keywords employers seem to like, you can write your resume to target those terms. That will help you get your resume seen by the people who schedule interviews. The more interviews you have, the more potential job offers you’ll get, and the better off you’ll be.

Why Bother Job Scraping?

You have options when it comes to researching job opportunities. Of course, you could just scour job websites yourself, but that could take weeks.

If you’re looking for work, you don’t want to wait that long. Instead, try web scraping. You can collect all the information you want and start looking for patterns in minutes instead of days.

The trick behind job board web scraping

If you’ve ever used Google, you’ve taken advantage of a service very similar to web scraping. Google relies on bots to explore sites and index information about them to present you with search results. Web scrapers work similarly.

A web scraper is an automated software bot that searches a website for specific information or file types. You can program the bot to target any information and any site you want. At the end of the search, the bot sends you the data it’s collected in a single, convenient file that you can study whenever you want.

How to scrape job information the right way

Web scraping isn’t as hard as it may seem. You can get started quickly with just a few resources:

• Job scraping software
• Proxies>
• A list of sites you want to study>
• A list of data types you want to collect

You don’t need a web scraping job postings tutorial to start web scraping job descriptions. You don’t even need to understand programming. If you do want to create your own program for web scraping job postings Python is a great solution. However, you can also use a pre-built bot to save time.

Using the right job scraping software will help you get started in minutes. High-quality web scraping bots include modules that can automate your research.

All you need to do is choose the module that matches your use case and follow the instructions. The bot will take care of the entire research process for you, then you can analyze your results in your own time.

Why Do You Need Proxies for Scraping Job Postings?

Proxies are on the list of job board web scraping tools for a good reason. Even the best job scraping software won’t always be perfect on its own. In fact, data scraping job sites without a proxy can actually get you banned from the very places you need to find your next job.

Why proxies are essential

When you go to pages online or tell a bot to visit them for you, the target site tracks who’s visiting. The site does so by monitoring IP addresses, which are kind of like your computer’s home address or ID card.

Most websites encourage human visitors, but they can interpret bots as attackers. If your web scraping software visits a site too many times in a short period, the target can ban your IP address entirely.

That’s where proxies can help. A proxy is a helpful tool for protecting your personal IP address. When you visit a site while using a proxy, the page registers the proxy’s IP address, not yours.

That’s still true when you use web scrapers. If your bot works too quickly and triggers an automatic block, your IP is still okay. You can simply switch to a different proxy and keep doing your research without worrying about your personal IP getting banned from the sites you need.

Choosing the right proxy for you

There are a couple kinds of proxies you can use to research your next job. Data center proxies are run out of data centers, which means that they’re cheaper to use but easier for websites to spot and block. That means you’ll probably need a lot of proxies to finish scraping job postings.

The other two options are static residential proxies and rotating residential proxies. Both have some important benefits.

Static residential proxies are IP addresses that look like they belong to someone’s home. That makes them look like a regular human internet user. They’re called “static” because they don’t change. You can use a static residential proxy until it’s blocked, and it will always stay the same.

Rotating residential proxies are a bit different. They still appear like they’re coming from someone’s residence, but they change automatically. Instead of waiting until a proxy gets banned from a website, rotating proxies automatically swap out on a set schedule. Essentially, you’re using multiple proxies at once to avoid any one of them getting banned. This is why they’re great for large-scale web scraping projects, especially for business use cases.

Residential proxies, both static and rotating, are the most reliable proxies you can choose for your research. However, that’s only true if you decide to work with an ethical proxy provider. Some providers source their proxies from people without permission.

Others don’t provide enough security, putting your personal information at risk. Both are more likely to fail than an ethical proxy. Instead, work with a provider who clearly states where it sources its proxies and what security is in place to protect you.

Let Job Board Web Scraping Simplify Your Search

You deserve to have a job that you love and that compensates you fairly. Even in the current job market, you should still do your research if you want to get that kind of position. The easiest way to learn what you need to know is to start job scraping the boards for your field.

With the right job scraping software paired with an ethical proxy, you can perform real time job scraping yourself. Never worry about missing out on opportunities or accepting poor pay again. Start learning about web scraping and proxies today.

The information contained within this article, including information posted by official staff, guest-submitted material, message board postings, or other third-party material is presented solely for the purposes of education and furtherance of the knowledge of the reader. All trademarks used in this publication are hereby acknowledged as the property of their respective owners.