auto applying for jobs

[alextony85]

hi all,

want to make a python script that does the below, just want to know if i can do all of this in python before i get going

google search for jobs ie job title, area

open the links to the results its found and apply for it (trying to still figure out how it will know how many pages to go though until it can click the apply)

upload my cv and fill in the forms if any ie name age, dob etc

once it applys to notify me of the job its applied for

thanks,
alex

[Larz60+]

Well, I can say that if it can be written in any other language, it can also be written in python.

[noisefloor]

Generally speaking: automating stuff works easier if the job to be done is repetitive. On the surface, the describe problem sounds repetitive, but going on step further it is not. Let's assume the Google search only gives results which are 100% suitable and opening the links works just fine. Filling the online application will be for sure the first big hurdle, as it is very unlikely that the forms on the application pages are uniform. It starts with plain HTML vs. dynamically created pages via JS. After that, you can be very sure that the naming of the fields and thus the finding of those across various pages is not uniform.

It is certainly not impossible, but quite a big task for which it may make sense to apply some type of ML algorithms. IMHO the efforts and work you have to put into that is not worse the positive effect you get out of it.

Regards, noisefloor

[alextony85]

Im looking at "selenium" to do this, do you think thats a good one, what others would you recommend, "beautiful soup"?

as every form will be different ie wont be uniform, ie some field ID could be NAME, some maybe firstnames etc

another task is if some websites have captcha, what is good for that, "selenium captcha?"

also i didnt realise if some websites want me to sign up before i apply for jobs

but the worst one im thinking of is lets say the "google search" list the results and some websites i have to drill down multiple pages to get to the form to autill and submit my cv, how do i get the script to go though the pages to get to the right page to submit?

thanks
alex

[Larz60+]

selenium is better than beautifulsoup if you have to deal with any java script.
That said, I often use selenium to get my target page, then use beautifulsoup to finish the job.
They work well together, and final parsing is often easier with beautifulsoup.

[alextony85]

sorry for my stupidity but what is the actual difference with beatiful soup and selenium

and also you think i should use for captcha selenium captcha or are there other ones i can use?

[snippsat]

sorry for my stupidity but what is the actual difference with beatiful soup and selenium

Both can parse content,but selenium can also do automation(push button, fill in text ect...) and parse from JavaScript heavy websites.

and also you think i should use for captcha selenium captcha or are there other ones i can use?

Use Google’s Official Search API.
Pros: No CAPTCHAs, reliable, legal.
Cons: You pay per query (but there’s a free tier).

import requests

API_KEY = "YOUR_API_KEY"
CX = "YOUR_SEARCH_ENGINE_ID"
query = "cars"

res = requests.get(
    "https://www.googleapis.com/customsearch/v1",
    params={"key": API_KEY, "cx": CX, "q": query}
)
data = res.json()
for item in data.get("items", []):
    print(item["title"], item["link"])

For google search with selenium need to use undetected_chromedriver,this may work to bypass bot‑detection and CAPTCHA that now google search use.

[alextony85]

sorry its been so long

so looking at this guide to get started

https://testingbot.com/resources/article...ation-test

but lets say i want to find what a text box is called on the website as i want to write in it or click a button, how do i find the ID or name of it

[alextony85]

ive made this code from the website

from selenium import webdriver
driver = webdriver.Chrome()  # or webdriver.Firefox()
driver.get("https://www.python.org")

i run it

(venv) C:\python>venv\linkdin.py

but it opens chrome goes on the website then closes, how do i leave the website open