# Stale Vacancy Lead Finder (`lontraindustries/stale-vacancy-lead-finder`) Actor

Finds employers whose job openings have stayed open for weeks. Type job titles, a place and an age limit in days. Get one row per employer: open matching roles, age of the oldest and newest role, posting links and a stale flag. For recruitment and staffing agencies.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/lontraindustries/stale-vacancy-lead-finder.md
- **Developed by:** [Lontra Industries](https://apify.com/lontraindustries) (community)
- **Categories:** Jobs, Lead generation, Business
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$20.00 / 1,000 employer rows

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Stale Vacancy Lead Finder

### What it does

You type the job titles you recruit for, a country or city, and how many days open counts as stale. The Actor reads public job listings that show a date, keeps the ones that match, and groups them by employer.

You get one row per employer: how many matching roles are open, how old the oldest and the newest one are, every role with its link and location, the career page link, and a stale flag. Rows with the stale flag come first, then the employers with the most open roles, then the oldest roles. A list like this is a reason to call an employer today: they have been trying to fill these roles for weeks.

Where it reads:

- **Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby job boards.** You paste the board links. The Actor reads the public job feed that each of these services publishes for a board.
- **Other public career pages you link to**, when the page publishes its jobs as schema.org JobPosting data, or when it links to or embeds one of the three kinds of board above.
- **The free Arbeitnow public job feed**, which lists jobs from many employers, mostly in Germany and the rest of Europe. This is on unless you turn it off, so the Actor also works when you have no links yet.

How it behaves:

- It reads the robots.txt of every site first and obeys it. It waits between requests to one site (2 seconds unless you change it) and names itself in every request as `StaleVacancyLeadFinder`.
- It never logs in and never works around a block or a CAPTCHA. If a source refuses, the run says which source and goes on with the others.
- It never collects names or emails of people and it contacts nobody. Finding contacts is not part of this Actor.
- If a listing shows no date, the age is "unknown". It is never guessed.
- The same role posted twice is counted once.
- No language model is used. The work is keyword matching, rules and date arithmetic.

### Who it is for

Recruitment and staffing agencies: the business development person, or the owner of a small agency, who needs employers to pitch and today reads job boards by hand to find them. Run it once a week on a schedule, or every morning if you pitch daily.

### Input

| Field | What to type | Default |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Job titles or keywords (`keywords`) | The roles you recruit for, one per line. A listing matches when every word of one entry is in its job title, in any order. "Software Engineer" also finds "Senior Software Engineer". | none, you must type at least one |
| Country or city (`location`) | One place, for example `Germany` or `Berlin`. For several places put a semicolon between them: `Germany; Berlin; Munich`. Empty means any place. | empty |
| Days open that count as stale (`staleDays`) | An employer is flagged when its oldest matching role has been open at least this many days. | 30 |
| Career page links (`careerPageUrls`) | Optional. Links such as `https://boards.greenhouse.io/company`, `https://jobs.lever.co/company`, `https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/company`, or another public career page. | none |
| Also search a public job feed (`usePublicJobSearch`) | On or off. When on, the Arbeitnow feed is read too. | on |
| Pages of the public job feed to read (`maxSearchPages`) | The feed comes in pages, newest listings first. More pages reach further back. | 5 |
| Largest number of employers (`maxEmployers`) | The run returns at most this many rows, the most stale first. | 200 |
| Wait between requests to one site (`requestDelaySeconds`) | Seconds between two requests to the same site. | 2 |

A sample input is in `sample_input.json`.

### Output

Each employer is one item in the default dataset. This item is what the Actor produces from the sample pages in `tests/fixtures` (a made-up employer on a Greenhouse board), with the keyword "Software Engineer", the place "Germany" and a limit of 30 days, checked on 2026-10-11:

```json
{
    "employer": "Acme Robotics",
    "career_page_url": "https://boards.greenhouse.io/acme",
    "matching_roles": 3,
    "stale": true,
    "stale_roles": 1,
    "oldest_role_age_days": 71,
    "newest_role_age_days": 10,
    "oldest_role_date": "2026-08-01",
    "newest_role_date": "2026-10-01",
    "roles_with_unknown_age": 0,
    "stale_days_limit": 30,
    "roles": [
        {
            "title": "Senior Software Engineer",
            "url": "https://boards.greenhouse.io/acme/jobs/101",
            "location": "Berlin, Germany",
            "date": "2026-08-01",
            "date_type": "posted",
            "age_days": 71,
            "age": "71 days",
            "source": "greenhouse"
        },
        {
            "title": "Software Engineer, Backend",
            "url": "https://boards.greenhouse.io/acme/jobs/102",
            "location": "Berlin, Germany",
            "date": "2026-09-25",
            "date_type": "posted",
            "age_days": 16,
            "age": "16 days",
            "source": "greenhouse"
        },
        {
            "title": "Software Engineer in Test",
            "url": "https://boards.greenhouse.io/acme/jobs/106",
            "location": "Munich, Germany",
            "date": "2026-10-01",
            "date_type": "updated",
            "age_days": 10,
            "age": "10 days",
            "source": "greenhouse"
        }
    ],
    "roles_text": "Senior Software Engineer (Berlin, Germany, 71 days); Software Engineer, Backend (Berlin, Germany, 16 days); Software Engineer in Test (Munich, Germany, 10 days)",
    "sources": ["greenhouse"],
    "keywords_matched": ["Software Engineer"],
    "checked_on": "2026-10-11"
}
```

What the fields mean:

- `stale` is true when the oldest matching role is at or above your limit. `stale_roles` says how many roles are.
- `oldest_role_age_days` and `newest_role_age_days` are empty (null) when no matching role of that employer shows a date. `roles_with_unknown_age` counts the roles without a date; for those, `age_days` is null and `age` says "unknown".
- `date_type` is `posted` when the listing shows its posting date, and `updated` when it only shows when it was last changed. With `updated`, the role has been open at least that long.
- `career_page_url` is the board or career page the roles were read from. It is empty for an employer that was only found in the public job feed.
- `roles_text` is the same list of roles in one line, which is easier to read in a spreadsheet.

A short summary of the run is saved in the key-value store under the key `OUTPUT`. From the same sample pages (the list of sources is shortened to one here):

```json
{
    "employers": 5,
    "employers_stale": 4,
    "matching_roles": 10,
    "roles_with_unknown_age": 2,
    "duplicates_skipped": 1,
    "listings_read": 17,
    "employers_over_max": 0,
    "employers_in_dataset": 5,
    "employers_held_back": 0,
    "spending_limit_reached": false,
    "keywords": ["Software Engineer"],
    "location": "Germany",
    "stale_days_limit": 30,
    "checked_on": "2026-10-11",
    "sources": [
        {
            "source": "greenhouse",
            "name": "Greenhouse board \"acme\"",
            "url": "https://boards-api.greenhouse.io/v1/boards/acme/jobs",
            "status": "ok",
            "listings_read": 6,
            "message": ""
        }
    ],
    "sources_not_read": [],
    "message": "5 employers with matching roles, 4 flagged stale (a role open 30 days or more)."
}
```

Each source has a status: `ok`, `partial` (it stopped early), `no_listings`, `not_found`, `refused` or `failed`, with the reason in `message`.

### Pricing

Pay per event. There is one event, `employer-result`: $0.02 for each employer row saved to the dataset.

You are not charged for listings that were read, for employers that did not match, or for sources that refused. A run that finds no matching employer charges nothing.

Two ways to cap the cost of a run: set "Largest number of employers", or set a maximum charge per run in Apify. When your limit is reached, the Actor saves the most stale rows that fit, stops, and says in the summary how many rows were left out. Rows that were left out are not charged.

### Limits

- It reads only the sources listed above. It does not read LinkedIn, Indeed, Glassdoor or any site that needs a login or blocks automated reading.
- Without career page links, the only source is the Arbeitnow feed, which is mostly Germany and the rest of Europe, newest listings first, as far back as the number of pages you set.
- Career pages that only build their job list in the browser, with no job data in the page itself, give no listings. The Actor does not run a browser.
- The age is the number of days since the date the listing shows. For Greenhouse that is the first publication date, or the last update date when the first is missing. For Lever it is the day the posting was created. A role that was closed and posted again shows the new date.
- A listing matches a place only when the listing names it. "Germany" does not match a listing that only says "Munich"; add the cities you care about, separated by semicolons. Remote roles match only when they name your place.
- Keywords are matched against the job title only, as whole words. "Engineer" does not match "Engineering Manager".
- For Lever and Ashby boards the employer name is the short name in the board link, for example "globex", because their feeds do not carry the company name.
- Two listings of one employer with the same title in the same place are treated as one role, even if the employer really has two such openings.
- It does not find contacts, and it does not remember earlier runs, so it cannot tell you what is new since last week.

### Run the tests

From this folder, with Python 3.12 and nothing installed:

```
python -m unittest discover -s tests
```

The tests use saved sample pages in `tests/fixtures` and never touch the network.

# Actor input Schema

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

The roles you recruit for, one per line. A listing matches when every word of one of your entries is in its job title, in any order. For example, Software Engineer also finds Senior Software Engineer.

## `location` (type: `string`):

Only listings that name this place are kept. Type one country or city, for example Germany or Berlin. For several places, put a semicolon between them: Germany; Berlin; Munich. Leave empty for any place.

## `staleDays` (type: `integer`):

An employer is flagged stale when its oldest matching role has been open at least this many days.

## `careerPageUrls` (type: `array`):

Links to the public job pages of employers you want checked, one per line. Greenhouse, Lever and Ashby job board links work best, for example https://boards.greenhouse.io/company, https://jobs.lever.co/company or https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/company. Other public career pages are read when they publish their jobs with dates in the page.

## `usePublicJobSearch` (type: `boolean`):

When on, the Actor also reads the free Arbeitnow job feed, which lists jobs from many employers, mostly in Germany and the rest of Europe. Turn it off to check only your own career page links.

## `maxSearchPages` (type: `integer`):

The public job feed comes in pages, newest listings first. More pages reach further back in time and take a little longer.

## `maxEmployers` (type: `integer`):

The run returns at most this many employer rows, the most stale first. You pay for each row returned, so this is also a simple way to cap the cost of a run.

## `requestDelaySeconds` (type: `integer`):

How many seconds the Actor waits before it asks the same site again. A longer wait is gentler on the site and makes the run slower.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "keywords": [
    "Software Engineer",
    "Data Engineer"
  ],
  "location": "Germany",
  "staleDays": 30,
  "careerPageUrls": [
    "https://boards.greenhouse.io/gitlab",
    "https://jobs.lever.co/leverdemo"
  ],
  "usePublicJobSearch": true,
  "maxSearchPages": 5,
  "maxEmployers": 200,
  "requestDelaySeconds": 2
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

## `summary` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "keywords": [
        "Software Engineer"
    ],
    "location": "Germany"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("lontraindustries/stale-vacancy-lead-finder").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "keywords": ["Software Engineer"],
    "location": "Germany",
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("lontraindustries/stale-vacancy-lead-finder").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "keywords": [
    "Software Engineer"
  ],
  "location": "Germany"
}' |
apify call lontraindustries/stale-vacancy-lead-finder --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,lontraindustries/stale-vacancy-lead-finder"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/V6DczBXwVGUWbrGlX/builds/phnKQtZ9w0Itp6X5W/openapi.json