PlanoTse Handbook for Job Search Automation/What is job search automation?

From Wikibooks, open books for an open world
Jump to navigation Jump to search
PlanoTse Handbook for Job Search Automation
What is web search automation? What is job search automation? Where to begin
Chapter 1

What is job search automation?[edit | edit source]

Job Search Automation[edit | edit source]

Job search automation is the use of web search automation in job search. In other words, job search automation is the act of automatically carrying out the job search process, see below. Basic concepts in job search automation are presented as a glossary on the right.

Job Search Process[edit | edit source]

In order you understand job search automation, we need to analyze a basic job search process and express it in a sequence of steps, as shown in the following example:

  1. Choose a web browser, e.g. Firefox.
  2. Choose a web search engine, e.g. Google.
  3. Define a search string
    1. List required keywords
    2. List exclusion keywords
    3. List search factors
      1. Skills
      2. Locations
      3. Industries
  4. Execute the search command
  5. Scan several SERPs.
  6. Check out several search results.
  7. Turn a search result into a job search deliverable by gathering information about the prospective job.
  8. Turn a search deliverable into a job prospect by making the first contact with the job advertiser.
  9. Manage search deliverables and job prospects.

Below is a sample search string. This string tells the search engine to find articles with three required keywords: technical, software and New York. However, the result should not include articles with any of the exclusion keywords: hardware and management.

Sample Search String

+technical +software +New-York -hardware -management

The Reason Why[edit | edit source]

If you're looking for work based on several different skills, in various industries, and at numerous cities, you need to carry out the job search process many times. For example, given that you have 3 job titles, 2 industries, and 4 cities, you may want to execute 24 different search commands, each for a unique set of skill, industry and city. This is reason enough for job search automation.


Furthermore, if you want to use many web search engines and repeat the job search process again and again every other day, job search automation is totally necessary.

Glossary[edit | edit source]

  • criteria a set of search variables
  • deliverable useful information extracted from a search result
  • factor a multiplicative search variable
  • prospect a possible job
  • result a web search result
  • search string search criteria expressed in the syntax as required by the web search engine
  • SERP search engine results page
  • tag head (start tag) or tail (end tag) of an HTML element







This page is part of The Shortest Route, which is the shortest sequence of pages that would as quickly as possible bring you to the point where you can start using PlanoTse effectively for either job search automation or any other application in the mining of global data from the World Wide Web.



PlanoTse Handbook for Job Search Automation
What is web search automation? What is job search automation? Where to begin