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How to Build a Scheduled Job Scraper That Tracks New Postings Week by Week

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A developer tutorial on DEV Community outlines how to build a scheduled web scraper that detects newly posted and closed job listings by comparing consecutive weekly scrapes. The core technique relies on diffing stable job IDs rather than titles, since titles can be edited and cause false positives in change detection. The guide warns against persisting state from failed or incomplete fetches, as partial data can falsely report mass job closures. It also covers handling the first run separately to avoid flooding alerts with hundreds of spurious "new" listings. Beyond individual postings, the method enables tracking hiring momentum by counting role changes per company over time, offering a signal for job seekers and sales teams alike.

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