Job scraping is critical to the way job boards function. A job board scraper scours various employer websites to find job listings and collates them, which are then posted on the job board. Job board owners might be divided between having an in-house job scraping setup and hiring a job scraping service provider, as each has its own set of positives and negatives that can significantly impact the performance of the job board. Let’s have a detailed look at the pros and cons of in-house job scraping that can help you decide whether it’s for you or if you’d be better off delegating the task to a job scraping service provider.
The pros of having an in-house job board scraper setup
The biggest advantage of having an in-house setup is getting complete control over the scraping process. Job boards can efficiently plan and manage job scraping strategies to maximize their functioning, resulting in high growth. For example, job scraper searches job listings on employers’ career pages, and the way job scrape works with your ATS is that it copies the job listings within your ATS and posts them on the site. Now, since you have complete control over the process, you can create a strategy regarding how frequently and which sites the job scraper will search for job listings.
The second advantage of a homegrown scraping setup is faster turnaround times. As the entire infrastructure is handled under a single roof, there are fewer communication challenges. Even if the job board scraper malfunctions, the issues can be resolved quickly to get the scraping process up and running.
The cons of having an in-house job scraping setup
While having an in-house job board scraper might seem highly beneficial, certain downsides need to be considered before making the final decision.
One of the major challenges of having an in-house job scraping setup is the requirement of IT infrastructure. You will need dedicated servers for running the scripts, data storage, and data transfer processes. You will also need to have dedicated spaces to house the equipment.
The second drawback is the requirement of a highly-skilled IT team. Job scraping is a niche process and requires a high level of technical skills. Finding the right talent can become tedious.
The third major drawback is the high costs that job boards can incur. Maintaining a full-time dedicated infrastructure and highly-skilled IT team can be costly. And if you don’t have the right expertise or the finances, then the job scraping process won’t be effective or get you the desired results.
It is advisable to outsource the job scraping process and use an external job board scraper, considering the pros and cons of an in-house scraping setup. However, you should also be mindful of investing in a premium job scraping tool such as the one offered by Propellum. Propellum’s job board scraper can extract job listings data from various websites, irrespective of the scale and complexity, and can be customized to your needs.
