SEEK Jobs Search Lookup — Postings by Keyword & Location

You write job searches the way you'd type them into SEEK — developer @ Melbourne VIC — and this actor runs each one against SEEK's own public search API, Australia's largest job board, and returns one clean row per posting: title, company, location, category, pay range (when SEEK displays one), and a permanent link.

No login. No API key. SEEK's search-results page itself is behind a bot wall, but the JSON endpoint that page calls under the hood is not — see "Why this one" below.

Who it's for

The accountable_eel catalogue sells company and hiring intelligence columns for outbound and recruiting. Each actor takes a list of identifiers — domains, company slugs, and here, job searches — and returns one flat, stably-named row per result: the shape a Clay table, an n8n workflow, or an AI agent can consume without post-processing. Pricing is pay-per-event: a fraction of a cent for a row you actually got, and nothing at all for a search that finds nothing. No seat licence, no monthly minimum, no credit system to decode.

This actor is the Australian counterpart to linkedin-jobs-search-lookup: wide-net keyword + location search rather than a per-company listing. The ATS lookups in the same family (greenhouse-jobs-lookup, lever-jobs-lookup and friends) answer "what is this company hiring for" — you bring the company list. This one answers "who is hiring for this role, in this part of Australia" when you don't have the list yet.

Why this one

• Reaches data a plain page-load can't. seek.com.au's search-results page and every individual job page return HTTP 403 to a direct request — a bot wall. The page's own backing API, www.seek.com.au/api/jobsearch/v5/search, does not: it's the same JSON call your browser makes to render the page, and it answers a plain unauthenticated request with real, live results. No proxy, no browser automation, no CAPTCHA-solving — a control this catalogue will not build regardless (see the top-level rules this portfolio operates under).
• The filters are real. keywords, where (location) and "posted within" are all genuinely honoured upstream — verified by watching the total-match count actually change per filter (2,495 → 494 → 19 across three narrowing steps on the same search) — not decorative parameters the endpoint silently ignores.
• You are never billed for the same posting twice. Every posting is deduplicated by its SEEK job ID across the pages of one search and, by default, across every search in the run — an overlapping pair of searches returns, and bills, each posting once.
• Honest about what's NOT here. SEEK's job-detail page is behind the same bot wall as its search page, with no working JSON alternative found — so there is no full-description enrichment on this actor. teaser, SEEK's own one-line summary, is what every row carries instead, and it's labelled as a teaser, not sold as a full posting.
• A real depth ceiling, stated rather than hit blind. SEEK stops serving new results after about 500 postings per search regardless of how many more it claims exist — totalAvailable and truncated tell you when a search hit that wall.

What you get

One row per job posting by default. (Turn off "One row per job posting" in the Input tab to get one row per search instead, with the whole posting list nested in jobs.) Every row carries these fields:

Field	Type / format	Description
query	text	The search line you passed in, unchanged.
found	boolean	true if the search returned at least one posting. false rows are never charged.
status	text	OK, NOT_FOUND (no postings for that search), BAD_FORMAT (the line had neither keywords nor a location), or BLOCKED.
searchKeywords	text	The keywords actually sent to SEEK.
searchLocation	text	The location actually sent to SEEK.
jobCount	number	How many postings this search returned after your filters — this is exactly what you're charged for.
totalAvailable	number	SEEK's own total-match count for the search, before this actor's page/depth limits.
truncated	boolean	true if more postings were available than you asked for, or if paging stopped early (SEEK's own 500-result depth cap, or a mid-run rate limit).
jobs	array	The full posting list. Present in every row; it's what gets expanded into separate rows in "one row per posting" mode.
jobId	text	SEEK's own numeric posting ID — stable, and what deduplication keys on.
title	text	Job title.
companyName	text	Hiring company as SEEK names it.
advertiser	text	The listing's advertiser — often the same as companyName, but a recruitment agency's name when one is posting on the employer's behalf.
location	text	Location as SEEK prints it on the posting (e.g. "Sydney NSW", "Melbourne VIC").
remote	boolean	true if the location, work arrangement, or title reads as remote.
classification	text	SEEK's top-level job category (e.g. "Information & Communication Technology").
subClassification	text	SEEK's sub-category (e.g. "Engineering - Software").
workTypes	array	e.g. ["Full time"], ["Contract/Temp"].
workArrangement	text	e.g. "Hybrid", "Remote", "On-site", when SEEK states one.
salaryLabel	text	The pay range or rate exactly as SEEK's advertiser wrote it (e.g. "$120,000 – $140,000 per year"). Present only when the advertiser chose to disclose one.
teaser	text	SEEK's own one-line summary of the posting — the only description-shaped field this actor offers (see "Why this one").
bulletPoints	array	Short highlight bullets SEEK shows on some cards. Empty on most postings.
isFeatured	boolean	true if SEEK marks this a featured/promoted listing.
postedAt	date (ISO)	SEEK's own listing timestamp.
postedAgo	text	The same thing in SEEK's words ("17m ago", "2 days ago").
jobUrl	link	Permanent link to the posting on seek.com.au.
companyLogoUrl	image	Company/advertiser logo image URL, when SEEK has one on file.
scrapedAt	date (ISO)	When this actor fetched the row.

A search that returns no postings comes back as a single found: false row with a status/message explaining why, and is never charged. So does a blank line.

Pricing

• Job posting returned: $1 per 1,000 job postings

Plus a $0.00005 start fee per run. Each event above is billed independently, only when it actually returns data — misses (found:false) are never charged.

You're charged per posting returned, not per search — a search that returns 12 postings costs twelve, a search that returns none costs nothing, and a BAD_FORMAT line costs nothing.

Because you pay per posting, "Most postings to return per search" is your budget control: leave it at 50 and a ten-search run costs at most 500 postings' worth. SEEK stops serving new results past roughly 500 per search regardless, so that is the real ceiling per line.

How to use

1. In the Apify Console. Open the actor page and click Start — the searches field is already pre-filled with a working example. Results land in the run's dataset as soon as each item is found.
2. Via the API. Call it directly with a POST request — no Console needed once you have an API token:

   curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~seek-jobs-search-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
     -X POST \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"searches":["developer @ Melbourne VIC"]}'
   

3. On a schedule. Save this actor as an Apify Task with the input you want, then add a Schedule (hourly, daily, weekly) so it runs on its own — no server of your own required.

Paste one search per line:

developer @ Melbourne VIC
registered nurse
marketing manager @ Sydney NSW

A line with no @ location uses the location you set once in 🔍 Search settings — leave that blank too and the search covers all of Australia.

🔍 Search settings — these are sent to SEEK, so they narrow the search before results are returned, which makes runs cheaper as well as more relevant:

Input	What it does
defaultLocation	Location for any line that doesn't name one. Write it as SEEK does — "Sydney NSW", "Melbourne VIC".
maxJobsPerQuery	Most postings to return per search. Default 50, capped at SEEK's own ~500-result depth limit.
postedWithin	Past 24 hours / 3 days / week / 2 weeks.

🎯 Narrow the results — applied here, to the postings after they arrive, so you can filter on things SEEK's own search box doesn't expose. They combine with AND across fields and OR within a field:

Input	What it does
titleKeywords	Keep only titles containing one of these — ["engineer","analyst"].
excludeTitleKeywords	Drop titles containing one of these — ["intern","trainee"]. Applied after the include list.
companies	Keep only these companies — partial names match.
excludeCompanies	Drop these companies — useful for filtering out recruitment agencies you already know.
locations	Narrow a wide search to particular suburbs or regions.
remoteOnly	Keep only roles whose location, work arrangement, or title reads as remote.
skipDuplicateJobs	On by default. Each posting is returned, and billed, once per run even if two searches overlap.

Input

{
  "searches": [
    "developer @ Melbourne VIC"
  ]
}

One search per line. Write it as "keywords @ location", or just the keywords and set a location below. Accepted formats: developer @ Melbourne VIC, registered nurse, marketing manager @ Sydney NSW.

Output

query	found	status	searchKeywords	searchLocation	jobCount	totalAvailable	truncated	jobs	jobId	title	companyName	advertiser	location	remote	classification	subClassification	workTypes	workArrangement	salaryLabel	teaser	bulletPoints	isFeatured	postedAt	postedAgo	jobUrl	companyLogoUrl	scrapedAt
actuary @ Canberra ACT	true	OK	actuary	Canberra ACT	10	10	false	<all postings found (full list)>	94044064	2027 Technology Consulting Graduate Consultant	SEEK Grad	SEEK Grad	Canberra ACT	false	Consulting & Strategy	Other	["Full time"]			MinterEllison is currently recruiting for Technology Consulting Graduates in our Canberra office.	[]	false	2026-08-18T04:51:46Z	13d ago	https://www.seek.com.au/job/94044064	https://bx-branding-gateway.cloud.seek.com.au/f9e136a9-04ad-4f08-bf58-5d62cd652db0.1/jdpLogo	2026-08-31T06:50:13.710Z

A miss comes back as a row with "found": false and is never charged.

Use it from Clay, n8n, Make, or an AI agent

This actor runs synchronously over plain HTTP — call it directly from a script, a workflow tool, or an AI agent, no Apify Console needed once you have an API token.

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~seek-jobs-search-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"searches":["developer @ Melbourne VIC"]}'

n8n. Add an HTTP Request node: Method POST, URL https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~seek-jobs-search-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>, Body Content Type JSON, JSON Body {"searches":["developer @ Melbourne VIC"]} (swap in an expression from an earlier node for a real value).

Clay. Add an "HTTP API" column: Method POST, URL https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/accountable_eel~seek-jobs-search-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_TOKEN>, Body {"searches":["{{search}}"]}, mapping the row's search into the searches array.

MCP. In Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client with the Apify MCP server, ask for "SEEK Jobs Search Lookup | Apify" — the agent will find and run this actor.