USAJOBS Scraper — Federal Government Jobs Data Without an API Key

Extract USAJOBS federal job announcements from USAJOBS.gov — the official U.S. government job board — without an API key, at $0.9 per 1,000 results. Get job title, agency, salary range, GS pay grade, security clearance, remote and telework eligibility, hiring paths, duty locations and closing dates in one clean dataset, ready for job boards, federal recruiters, staffing firms and labor market research.

Main Use Cases

• Federal job postings monitoring — track new announcements by keyword, agency or occupational series as they open
• Remote and telework federal jobs research — find work-from-home federal positions across departments
• Federal salary data & GS pay grade benchmarks — build compensation datasets for pay scale research
• Security clearance job search — surface Secret, Top Secret and SCI announcements for cleared talent
• Federal hiring trend analysis — capture volumes, agencies, locations and closing patterns over time
• Job board aggregation — power federal job listings on career portals and newsletters

How It Works

1. Set optional filters (keyword, location, hiring path, occupational series, department, clearance, remote, schedule, travel and more) — all fields have defaults, so you can also just press Run.
2. The actor opens a single short headless-Chromium session (~5 seconds) to pass the Akamai anti-bot challenge, then replays the cookie over plain HTTP — no proxy required.
3. It searches USAJOBS with the same internal search endpoint the USAJOBS website itself uses, paginates through results, then visits each job announcement (JOA) detail page to extract ~30 structured fields with Cheerio.
4. Download the dataset as JSON, HTML, CSV or Excel.

Because the browser runs for only seconds, a run scraping hundreds of announcements costs well under one compute unit.

Extract Federal Job Data Without a USAJOBS API Key

The official free USAJOBS Search API requires a manual key request with ~1 business-day approval. This actor skips that entirely: it uses the search endpoint the USAJOBS website itself uses, so you can pull federal job announcements immediately — no signup form, no approval wait, no key rotation. It also works around Akamai with its own bundled Chromium, which means no proxy traffic is charged in the default configuration.

Monitor Remote & Telework Federal Jobs

The remoteIndicator and teleworkIndicator filters let you isolate positions that can be done from home. Combine remoteIndicator: true with maxItems and a schedule to maintain an always-fresh dataset of remote federal jobs — a strong content play for remote-work job boards and newsletters.

Research GS Pay Scales & Federal Salaries

Every announcement returns salaryMin, salaryMax, salary, payPlan, payScaleGrade, gradeLow and gradeHigh. Filter by occupational series (e.g. 2210 for IT Management, 0610 for Nursing) or department to build federal salary benchmarks by role, agency and location.

Track Security Clearance & Closing Dates

• Use securityClearance (0–8) to target Not Required, Confidential, Secret, Top Secret, SCI and more.
• Set sortField: "closedate" with sortDirection: "Asc" to prioritize announcements closing soon — ideal for recruiters pushing candidates to apply.

Input

All input fields are optional and have defaults. Full reference:

Field	Type	Required	Default	Notes
keyword	string	No	—	Searches full announcement text (e.g. nurse, engineer)
location	string	No	—	City, state, ZIP or military installation (e.g. Washington DC, Texas)
hiringPaths	string[]	No	[]	public, vet, nguard, disability, native, mspouse, student, ses, peace, overseas, fed-internal-search, graduates, fed-excepted, fed-competitive, fed-transition, land, special-authorities
jobCategoryCodes	string[]	No	[]	Occupational series codes (e.g. 2210 IT Management, 0801 General Engineering)
departments	string[]	No	[]	Department codes (e.g. AF Air Force, HE HHS)
agencies	string[]	No	[]	Agency sub-element codes (e.g. AF00)
securityClearance	string	No	—	0 Not Required, 1 Confidential, 2 Secret, 3 Top Secret, 4 SCI, 5 Q, 7 L, 8 Other
remoteIndicator	boolean	No	unset	true = remote only, false = exclude remote, unset = all
teleworkIndicator	boolean	No	unset	true = telework-eligible only
workSchedule	string	No	—	1 Full-time, 2 Part-time, 3 Shift work, 4 Intermittent, 5 Job Sharing, 6 Multiple
appointmentType	string	No	—	15317 Permanent, 15337 Term, 15342 Detail, 15352 Temporary, 15368 Multiple
travelPercentage	string	No	—	0 No travel, 25 Occasional, 50 <25%, 75 ≥25%, 100 Up to 100%
supervisors	string	No	—	true supervisory, false non-supervisory
sortField	string	No	—	opendate, closedate, jobtitle, salarymin, location, organizationname, etc.
sortDirection	string	No	—	Asc / Desc
maxItems	integer	No	50	Max announcements to scrape. Free users are capped at 10.
resultsPerPage	integer	No	100	Results per search page (max 500)
maxSearchPages	integer	No	40	Max search pages (max 400); paging stops early at maxItems
startUrls	array	No	[]	Direct JOA URLs (https://www.usajobs.gov/job/<id>) — skips search, no browser needed
proxy	object	No	off	Optional proxy for the short bootstrap step only, if your datacenter IP is blocked by Akamai

Output

Each dataset item is one federal job announcement with ~30 fields:

Field	Description
title	Job announcement title
agency / department / subAgency	Hiring organization
salaryMin / salaryMax / salary	Salary range
payScaleGrade / gradeLow / gradeHigh / payPlan	Pay scale & GS grade
occupationalSeries	Occupational series codes + names
securityClearance	Clearance required
teleworkEligible / remote	Telework / remote flags
workSchedule / workType	Full-time / permanent, etc.
travelPercentage / supervisoryStatus	Travel & supervision level
announcementNumber	Announcement/control number
hiringPaths	Hiring paths (public, vet, etc.)
dutyLocations	Duty locations (city, state)
openDate / closeDate	Announcement open / close dates
announcementUrl	Link to the announcement
jobSummary / duties	Full job description text

Example Input

{
  "keyword": "engineer",
  "location": "Washington DC",
  "remoteIndicator": true,
  "jobCategoryCodes": ["0801"],
  "sortField": "closedate",
  "sortDirection": "Asc",
  "maxItems": 100,
  "resultsPerPage": 100,
  "maxSearchPages": 10
}

Example Output

{
  "positionId": "865821500",
  "title": "THE LEGISLATIVE REGULATORY AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT DIVISION CHIEF - DIRECT HIRE AUTHORITY",
  "agency": "Department of the Air Force Headquarters",
  "department": "Department of the Air Force",
  "subAgency": "Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC)  MPCN: 010069071M",
  "announcementUrl": "https://www.usajobs.gov/job/865821500",
  "salaryMin": "107446.00",
  "salaryMax": "164301.00",
  "salary": "$107,446 - $164,301 per year",
  "payScaleGrade": "NH 4",
  "gradeLow": "4",
  "gradeHigh": "4",
  "payPlan": "NH",
  "occupationalSeries": ["0801 General Engineering", "0819 Environmental Engineering"],
  "securityClearance": "Other",
  "teleworkEligible": "Yes—as determined by the agency policy.",
  "remote": "No",
  "workSchedule": "Full-time",
  "workType": "Permanent",
  "travelPercentage": "Occasional travel - You may be expected to travel for this position.",
  "supervisoryStatus": "Yes",
  "announcementNumber": "AFMC-12937527-DLF-FLYER",
  "hiringPaths": ["The public"],
  "dutyLocations": ["Lackland AFB, TX"],
  "openDate": "04/20/2026",
  "closeDate": "08/17/2026",
  "jobSummary": "The Air Force offers qualified applicants opportunities to be hired for...",
  "duties": "Duties for this position typically include : Establishes, revises, or reviews policies..."
}

Integrations & Automation

• Apify API — call the actor programmatically from your job board, CRM or data pipeline
• Webhooks — push new announcements to Slack, Google Sheets, Airtable or your own API as soon as they're scraped
• Zapier / Make — connect the dataset to thousands of apps without code
• Scheduling — run daily or hourly to keep a rolling dataset of new federal job postings; recurring runs also improve Apify Store recommendations for your account

Related Actors

• USAJOBS Jobs Search Scraper — USAJOBS data via the jobs API (identity-verified)
• USAJOBS Federal Jobs Feed — incremental federal job announcements feed
• Careerbuilder Jobs Scraper — US civilian jobs with salaries & full descriptions
• ZipRecruiter Scraper — US jobs with salary & remote flags
• SAM.gov Scraper — federal RFPs & GovCon leads

These actors form the US jobs & federal data cluster: USAJOBS covers federal civil service, SAM.gov covers government contracts, and Careerbuilder/ZipRecruiter cover the private sector — so you can research the whole US hiring market with a small, consistent stack.

FAQ

Why use this actor instead of the official USAJOBS API?

The official free USAJOBS Search API requires a manual key request with ~1 business-day approval before you get access. This actor needs no key at all — it uses the same search endpoint the USAJOBS website uses and you can run it immediately. It also handles the Akamai anti-bot challenge itself, so you don't need to build a browser or proxy stack around the API.

What are alternatives to this actor / to USAJOBS data?

• The official USAJOBS Search API (requires key approval)
• Alternative USAJOBS actors like USAJOBS Jobs Search Scraper or USAJOBS Federal Jobs Feed
• Federal data sets from OPM.gov for wider workforce statistics

Can I scrape USAJOBS without an API key?

Yes — that is exactly what this actor does. It scrapes the public search and announcement pages that USAJOBS serves to the website itself, without any developer key.

What is the best way to build a federal jobs database?

Combine this actor's dataset (title, agency, salary, GS grade, location, dates, URL) with a scheduled run and webhook export into your database or spreadsheet. The announcementUrl gives you a stable key for deduplication and re-checking.

What is occupational series 2210?

2210 is the USAJOBS occupational series code for IT Management — the largest federal IT job category. Other common codes: 0610 Nursing, 0801 General Engineering. You can filter by any series code via jobCategoryCodes.

How do I monitor new federal job postings as they open?

Set sortField: "opendate", sortDirection: "Desc", and schedule the actor to run daily or hourly. Every run returns the latest announcements first, and webhooks can notify you instantly.

Does USAJOBS have remote jobs?

Yes — many announcements carry a remote eligibility flag. Set remoteIndicator: true to return only remote federal jobs.

What does a GS pay grade mean?

GS (General Schedule) is the U.S. federal government's main pay scale. Each job lists a pay plan, grade band (e.g. GS-12 to GS-13) and salary range — this actor returns all of them per announcement so you can benchmark federal salaries.

Is scraping USAJOBS legal?

This actor reads publicly accessible job announcement pages — no authentication, payment or access control is bypassed. Respect USAJOBS's terms of service and robots.txt, keep concurrency low, and use delays (pacing is already built in).

For AI Agents & LLM Apps

• Purpose: Returns structured federal job announcements from USAJOBS.gov — one dataset row per announcement with ~30 fields (agency, salary, GS grade, clearance, remote/telework, hiring paths, locations, dates).
• Minimal working input:

  { "maxItems": 10 }
  

  All filters are optional; this returns 10 announcements with the default sort.
• Variant inputs:

  { "keyword": "nurse", "location": "Texas", "maxItems": 50 }
  

  { "maxItems": 10, "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://www.usajobs.gov/job/865821500" }] }
  

• Output field list: positionId, title, agency, department, subAgency, salaryMin, salaryMax, salary, payScaleGrade, gradeLow, gradeHigh, payPlan, occupationalSeries, securityClearance, teleworkEligible, remote, workSchedule, workType, travelPercentage, supervisoryStatus, announcementNumber, hiringPaths, dutyLocations, openDate, closeDate, announcementUrl, jobSummary, duties.
• Behaviors an agent should know:
  • remoteIndicator has three states: true (remote only), false (exclude remote), unset (include all) — do not omit it when a caller says "remote jobs" unless "mixed" is acceptable.
  • securityClearance is a string code ("3" = Top Secret, not 3 as a number).
  • sortField accepts opendate / closedate / jobtitle / salarymin etc.; sortDirection is Asc/Desc (capitalized).
  • startUrls mode skips the search and the browser bootstrap entirely.
  • maxItems caps total results; free-tier runs are capped at 10 items.
• Billing model: pay-per-event — $0.0005 run start + $0.0009 per announcement result ($0.9 per 1K results). No proxy cost in default mode.

Legal & Compliance Disclaimer

This actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) or USAJOBS.gov. It only accesses publicly available job announcement pages and the public search endpoint — it does not bypass login, authentication, payment or access controls. Users are responsible for complying with USAJOBS's terms of service, robots.txt and applicable law; keep request rates moderate. This actor does not extract personal contact data.

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