USAJOBS Scraper for Federal Job Announcement Data

What a USAJOBS scraper can extract per announcement

This is the shape of USAJOBS data, using the names the documentation uses, whether it reaches you through an endpoint or off the page.

• Identifiers - control number and announcement number. The Search API returns them as MatchedObjectId and PositionID.
• Organization - hiring department, hiring agency, sub-element and agency codes. The agency sub-element code list returned 1067 entries when we last pulled it.
• Occupational series - the four digit code, for example 2210 for Information Technology Management or 0185 for Social Work. That list returned 822 entries.
• Pay plan and grade - pay plan code such as GS, with minimum grade, maximum grade and promotion potential. The pay plan list returned 391 entries.
• Salary - minimum and maximum with a rate interval such as Per Year.
• Dates - position open date, position close date and position expire date.
• Closing type - Closing Date, Open Continuous, Applicant Cut-Off or Closing Time.
• Eligibility - hiring paths, who may apply, and federal service type, which is Competitive, Excepted or Senior Executive.
• Conditions - telework eligibility, remote flag, security clearance level, drug test, relocation reimbursement, travel requirement, supervisory status, work schedule and appointment type.
• Locations - an array, with city, state and country, plus latitude and longitude in the Search API.
• Status - Accepting applications, Reviewing applications, Job closed, Job canceled or Hiring complete.

Two of those are arrays, and that decides the data model. One announcement can list many duty locations and can span a grade range, so minimum grade 12 with promotion potential 14 across six cities is an ordinary record. We deliver both shapes: one row per announcement, and an exploded table with one row per announcement and location, so a city count never inflates a job count.

What USAJOBS scraping adds beyond the API

The announcement page holds fields the structured record does not. We read position sensitivity and risk, such as Non-sensitive (NS)/Low Risk, the background check type, whether financial disclosure is required, whether the position is represented by a union, and the vacancy count printed above each location. None of those appear in the documented Search or Historic JOA response schemas.

Long text is a separate question. The Announcement Text endpoint returns summary, duties, conditions of employment, qualifications, education, required documents, how to apply, next steps, evaluations, other information and a hiring path explanation, all without a key. The Search API returns comparable text only when you request Fields=Full; ask for Fields=Min and you get the summary alone. We extract from the endpoint where it is complete and from the page where it is thin.

Then there is the area of consideration. USAJOBS expresses it as hiring paths under the heading "This job is open to", plus free text headed "Clarification from the agency". That note is where an agency restricts an opening to current employees of one facility. It is prose, so we keep it verbatim and flag the recurring patterns beside it.

We do not collect applicant profiles, resumes or saved documents. Those sit behind a login, they are personal data, and they are out of scope.