CV-Library Jobs Scraper

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Overview

Probe CV-Library, one of the UK's largest independent job boards, for career opportunities across Britain. This actor extracts position details, recruiter information, and compensation data from CV-Library's extensive listing database, covering permanent, temporary, and contract roles throughout the United Kingdom.

Features

• Independent UK job board with broad industry coverage
• Recruiter and agency information extraction
• Permanent, temporary, and contract role filtering
• Distance-based search radius support
• Proxy rotation with automatic fallback (residential → datacenter)
• CAPTCHA detection and session rotation
• Automatic retry on failures with exponential backoff
• Deduplication of results by application URL
• Dataset validation with auto-fix capability

Supported Inputs

Output Format

Each scraped listing produces a JSON object with these fields:

{
"jobTitle":"Senior Software Engineer",
"companyName":"Example Corp",
"location":"London",
"salary":"$120,000 - $160,000",
"jobType":"Full-time",
"experienceLevel":"Senior",
"postedDate":"2 days ago",
"applyUrl":"https://www.cv-library.co.uk/job/12345",
"companyUrl":"https://www.cv-library.co.uk/company/example",
"description":"We are looking for a skilled engineer...",
"requirements":["JavaScript","Node.js","React"],
"benefits":["Health Insurance","Remote Work"],
"sourcePortal":"CV-Library",
"country":"GB",
"scrapedAt":"2025-01-15T10:30:00.000Z"
}

Proxy Handling

The actor employs a multi-tier proxy strategy to maximize successful data extraction.

1. Apify Residential Proxy (country-targeted) — First choice for CV-Library
2. Apify Residential Proxy (any region) — Fallback if country proxy unavailable
3. Apify Datacenter Proxy — Secondary fallback for cost efficiency
4. Direct Connection — Last resort when all proxies fail

Proxies auto-rotate on each request. Blocked sessions are discarded and replaced automatically.

Retry Logic

Failed requests are retried up to 5 times with automatic session rotation.

• Maximum 5 retries per request
• Fresh browser session on each retry
• Automatic proxy rotation between attempts
• Blocked status codes (401, 403, 429) trigger session refresh
• Configurable request timeout (120 seconds)

Anti-block Handling

The actor incorporates multiple stealth techniques to minimize detection.

• navigator.webdriver property masked
• Human-like delays between page interactions (2–5 seconds)
• Browser language and plugin fingerprints normalised
• Session pool with automatic rotation on blocks
• CAPTCHA detection with graceful retry
• Rate limit detection (HTTP 429) with backoff

Sample Input

{
"keyword":"data analyst",
"location":"London",
"maxItems":25,
"proxyEnabled":true,
"sortBy":"date",
"remoteOnly":false
}

Sample Output

{
"jobTitle":"Data Analyst",
"companyName":"TechCorp International",
"location":"London",
"salary":"Competitive",
"jobType":"Full-time",
"experienceLevel":"Mid-level",
"postedDate":"1 day ago",
"applyUrl":"https://www.cv-library.co.uk/job/example-123",
"companyUrl":"",
"description":"Seeking a detail-oriented data analyst to join our growing team...",
"requirements":["SQL","Python","Tableau"],
"benefits":["Health Insurance","Flexible Hours"],
"sourcePortal":"CV-Library",
"country":"GB",
"scrapedAt":"2025-01-15T14:22:00.000Z"
}

Usage

Local Development

# Install dependencies
npminstall
# Set Apify token (required for proxy)
exportAPIFY_TOKEN=your_token_here
# Run the actor
npm start
# Validate scraped data
node dataset-validator.js

Apify Platform

# Login to Apify
apify login
# Push actor to platform
apify push
# Run from Apify Console or API

Deployment

1. Ensure all dependencies are installed: npm install
2. Authenticate with Apify: apify login
3. Deploy the actor: apify push
4. Configure input in the Apify Console
5. Schedule runs or trigger via API / webhooks

Limitations

• Results depend on the portal's current HTML structure; layout changes may require selector updates
• Some job details (salary, benefits) may not be available for all listings
• Rate limiting by the portal may reduce throughput during high-volume scrapes
• CAPTCHA challenges may interrupt scraping on heavily protected pages
• CV-Library may modify their anti-bot measures, requiring periodic updates
• Maximum items per run is capped at 1000 to prevent excessive resource usage
• Proxy costs apply when using Apify residential or datacenter proxies