Web scraping is the process of extracting data from websites automatically using software tools known as web scrapers or web spiders. Scraping job search sites like hh.ru can be useful for gathering large volumes of job posting data for analysis purposes. However, scraping should only be done in accordance with the website’s terms of service.

How Web Scraping Works

A web scraper works by sending HTTP requests to a target website, then extracting information from the HTML, XML or JSON response. The scraper can parse through the response, identifying relevant data using patterns and expressions, and store the extracted data in a spreadsheet, database or other structured format.

Scrapers typically go through the following steps:

• Identify the target site and URLs to scrape
• Inspect the page structure and data schema
• Write a scraper program to crawl the site, extract data, and handle pagination
• Parse and process the scraped data for analysis
• Store extracted data in desired format

Key considerations when scraping include:

• Avoiding getting blocked – use rotation of IPs and proxies
• Following robots.txt rules and site terms of service
• Scrape responsibly and minimize server load
• Handling large volumes of data efficiently
• Parsing complex page structures and inconsistent schemas

Scraping Job Listings on hh.ru

To scrape job postings on hh.ru specifically, the process may involve:

• Finding the main job search URL and determining patterns for job posting pages
• Extracting details like job title, company, salary range, description etc. from each listing
• Handling pagination on results pages
• Deduplicating and cleaning extracted data
• Storing details in a CSV file or database table

Some challenges with scraping hh.ru include:

• Understanding the site’s policy and scructure
• Parsing different templates for job details pages
• Capturing complete job requirements when description truncates
• Load from scraping high result volumes
• Running into captchas after a number of queries

Uses of Scraped Job Data

There are several potential applications of scraped job listing data:

• Market research – identify high demand skills, salary ranges, trends
• Job search optimization – find suitable openings matching candidate skills
• Recruitment analytics – track hiring volume, companies, locations etc.
• HR automation – auto-extract job details to populate career sites
• Competitive analysis – benchmark hiring against other employers

However, users should be aware of ethical concerns with repurposing data without permission. Scrapers should respect robots.txt rules and avoid excessive load on hh.ru’s servers.

Scraping Best Practices

When scraping any website, it’s important to follow good practices:

• Review and comply with the site’s terms, policies, robots.txt rules
• Scrape responsibly – use delays, minimize requests volume
• Don’t scrape data you don’t have a legitimate use for
• Avoid duplicate requests and manage data efficiently
• Use proxies and rotation to distribute requests
• Check for API access before resorting to scraping

With some care taken to scrape ethically and minimize disruption, web scraping can provide useful data for analysis and automating workflows. But it’s always best to use official APIs if available.

Summary

• Web scraping involves automatically extracting data from websites using HTTP requests and data extraction tools.
• Key steps include identifying target URLs, parsing page structure, writing a crawler, handling large data volumes, and storing scraped data.
• Scraping job listings from hh.ru can provide useful hiring market data but has challenges around policy compliance, data quality and technical complexity.
• Scraped job data has uses for market research, HR analytics, competitive intelligence and more. However, ethical concerns around repurposing data should be considered.
• It’s best practice to scrape responsibly within site guidelines and use APIs if available before resorting to web scraping.

joker

Professional data parsing via ZennoPoster, Python, creating browser and keyboard automation scripts. SEO-promotion and website creation: from a business card site to a full-fledged portal.