Ictjobs.ch Job Scraper

Scrapes job listings from ictjobs.ch, the leading IT job portal for Switzerland.

Three Scraping Modes

This scraper supports three distinct modes for different use cases:

Mode	Input	Output	Use Case
SEARCH MODE	Search query + category + region	Basic job data from listings	Fast discovery of new IT jobs
SEARCH + DETAILS MODE	includeJobDetails: true (default)	Full job data with descriptions	Complete data collection in one run
DIRECT URLS MODE	directUrls: [...]	Full job data + job_status	Still-alive checks, re-scraping specific jobs

Features

• WordPress API-based scraping - Uses the official WordPress REST API for fast, reliable data extraction
• JSON-LD schema extraction - Extracts structured data from job detail pages using schema.org JobPosting format
• Category filtering - Filter by IT job categories (Software Development, DevOps, Data Science, etc.)
• Region filtering - Filter by Swiss regions and cantons
• Employment type filter - Filter by full-time, part-time, internship, contract, temporary
• Comprehensive job data - Extracts title, company, location, contact details, and more
• LLM-powered contact extraction - Optional AI-powered extraction of contact person details using Groq or OpenRouter
• HR company filtering - Filter out recruitment agencies to get direct employer postings
• Standardized output - Returns data in the JobListing schema format
• Rate-limited - Respectful 2-second delays between API requests
• Proxy support - Built-in proxy rotation for reliability

Input

Field	Type	Description	Default
directUrls	array	Direct job URLs to scrape (skips search mode)	[]
searchQuery	string	Job title, skills, or keywords to search for	"" (all jobs)
category	string	Job category/field (e.g., "Software Development", "DevOps")	"" (all categories)
region	string	Swiss region or canton (e.g., "Zürich", "Bern", "Basel")	"" (all Switzerland)
employmentType	string	Employment type: all, full-time, part-time, internship, contract, temporary	all
maxResults	integer	Maximum number of job listings to scrape	500
includeJobDetails	boolean	Fetch full job descriptions from detail pages (slower but more data)	true
companyFilter	string	Filter by company type: all, exclude-hr, only-hr	all
llmApiKey	string	API key for LLM contact extraction (optional, secret)	-
llmModel	string	LLM model for contact extraction	none
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify proxy settings	Residential

Mode 1: SEARCH MODE (Fast)

Quick search without visiting detail pages:

• Use case: Fast IT job discovery, broad collection
• Speed: Fast - only scrapes listing pages
• Output: Basic job data (title, company, location, posted date)

{
  "searchQuery": "DevOps",
  "region": "Zürich",
  "maxResults": 200,
  "includeJobDetails": false
}

Mode 2: SEARCH + DETAILS MODE (Complete Data)

Default mode with includeJobDetails: true:

• Use case: Complete data collection in one run
• Speed: Moderate - visits detail pages for each job
• Output: Full descriptions, JSON-LD data, contact details

{
  "searchQuery": "Data Scientist",
  "region": "Zürich",
  "maxResults": 100
}

Mode 3: DIRECT URLS MODE (Still Alive Checks)

When directUrls is provided, the scraper operates in direct mode:

• Skips search phase - Goes directly to provided job URLs
• Job status detection - Returns online, offline, expired, or unknown
• Full data extraction - Same as detail page scraping
• Use case: Periodic "still alive" checks, re-scraping specific jobs after deduplication

{
  "directUrls": [
    "https://ictjobs.ch/job/senior-software-engineer-zurich-12345/",
    "https://ictjobs.ch/job/devops-engineer-bern-67890/",
    "https://ictjobs.ch/job/data-scientist-geneva-24680/"
  ]
}

Direct URLs mode workflow:

1. Provide array of Ictjobs.ch job detail URLs
2. Scraper visits each URL directly
3. Detects if job is still online or has been removed
4. Extracts JSON-LD structured data if available
5. Returns job_status field indicating availability

Categories

Ictjobs.ch has 157+ job categories including:

• Software Development / Engineering
• DevOps / Cloud / Infrastructure
• Data Science / Analytics / BI
• Cybersecurity / Information Security
• IT Project Management
• System Administration
• Quality Assurance / Testing
• UX/UI Design
• Database Administration
• Network Engineering
• And many more...

Leave the category field empty to get all IT jobs across all categories.

Regions

Filter jobs by Swiss regions or cantons:

• Zürich
• Bern
• Basel
• Ostschweiz (Eastern Switzerland)
• Zentralschweiz (Central Switzerland)
• Romandie (French-speaking Switzerland)
• Ticino
• Individual cantons (ZH, BE, AG, etc.)

HR Company Filtering

Filter jobs by company type to focus on direct employer postings or recruitment agencies:

Option	Description
all	Include all companies (default)
exclude-hr	Remove HR/recruitment agencies
only-hr	Show only HR/recruitment agency postings

The filter detects HR companies by matching company names against common patterns like "Personal", "Recruiting", "Staffing", "Job", "Vermittlung", etc.

LLM Contact Extraction (Optional)

The scraper can optionally use an LLM to extract structured contact person details from the raw HTML contact block.

Supported LLM Providers:

• Groq - Use API keys starting with gsk_ (recommended: fast and free tier available)
• OpenRouter - Use API keys starting with sk-or-

Available Models:

Model ID	Provider	Description
llama-3.1-8b-instant	Groq	Fast, lightweight (default)
mistral-small-3.1-24b-instruct	OpenRouter	More capable, higher quality

The LLM extracts:

• contact_salutation - "Herr" or "Frau"
• contact_firstname - First name of contact person
• contact_lastname - Last name of contact person

Example Input

Basic Search

{
  "searchQuery": "DevOps",
  "region": "Zürich",
  "employmentType": "full-time",
  "maxResults": 200
}

Category Filter

{
  "category": "Software Development",
  "region": "Bern",
  "maxResults": 100,
  "companyFilter": "exclude-hr"
}

With LLM Extraction

{
  "searchQuery": "Data Scientist",
  "region": "Zürich",
  "maxResults": 100,
  "llmApiKey": "gsk_your_groq_api_key_here",
  "llmModel": "llama-3.1-8b-instant"
}

Direct URLs - Still Alive Check

{
  "directUrls": [
    "https://ictjobs.ch/job/senior-software-engineer-zurich-12345/",
    "https://ictjobs.ch/job/devops-engineer-bern-67890/"
  ]
}

Output

Each job listing follows the standardized JobListing schema:

{
  "id": "12345",
  "title": "Senior DevOps Engineer (m/w/d)",
  "company": "Tech Innovations AG",
  "location": "Zürich, 8001, ZH",
  "canton": "ZH",
  "job_status": "online",
  "top_listing": null,
  "employment_type": "full-time",
  "workload_min": null,
  "workload_max": null,
  "remote_option": null,
  "salary_text": null,
  "description_snippet": "We are looking for an experienced DevOps Engineer...",
  "description_full": "Job Description: ...\n\nRequirements: ...\n\nWe offer: ...",
  "requirements": [],
  "posted_at": "2024-01-15T00:00:00.000Z",
  "expires_at": "2024-02-28T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source_url": "https://ictjobs.ch/job/senior-devops-engineer-12345",
  "source_platform": "ictjobs.ch",
  "contact_salutation": "Herr",
  "contact_firstname": "Thomas",
  "contact_lastname": "Müller",
  "contact_email": "jobs@techinnovations.ch",
  "contact_phone": "+41442345678",
  "contact_position": null,
  "contact_raw": "<p>Kontakt: Herr Thomas Müller<br/>E-Mail: jobs@techinnovations.ch<br/>Tel: +41 44 234 56 78</p>",
  "apply_url": "https://ictjobs.ch/job/senior-devops-engineer-12345",
  "apply_email": "jobs@techinnovations.ch",
  "company_url": "https://www.techinnovations.ch",
  "company_description": null,
  "company_social_urls": null,
  "company_benefits": null,
  "scraped_at": "2024-01-16T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Output Fields

Field	Description
id	Unique job posting ID
title	Job title
company	Company name
location	City/location with postal code and canton
canton	Swiss canton code (ZH, BE, AG, etc.)
job_status	Job availability: online, offline, expired, unknown (Direct URLs mode only)
top_listing	Boolean - if job is a paid promotion (always null for ictjobs.ch)
employment_type	full-time, part-time, contract, temporary, internship
workload_min	Minimum workload percentage (extracted from title if available)
workload_max	Maximum workload percentage (extracted from title if available)
remote_option	remote, hybrid, or null
salary_text	Salary as displayed (if available)
description_snippet	First 500 characters of description
description_full	Complete job description
requirements	Array of job requirements (usually empty)
posted_at	Publication date
expires_at	Expiration date (from JSON-LD if available)
source_url	Link to job posting
source_platform	Always "ictjobs.ch"
contact_salutation	"Herr" or "Frau" - extracted by LLM if API key provided
contact_firstname	First name - extracted by LLM if API key provided
contact_lastname	Last name - extracted by LLM if API key provided
contact_email	Email address - extracted via regex
contact_phone	Phone number - extracted via regex
contact_position	Contact person's position (usually null)
contact_raw	Raw HTML/text contact block from the job posting
apply_url	Application URL (usually same as source_url)
apply_email	Application email address
company_url	Company website (from JSON-LD if available)
company_description	Company description (usually null)
company_social_urls	Social media URLs (usually null)
company_benefits	Array of benefits (usually null)
scraped_at	Timestamp when job was scraped

Notes on job_status field:

• Only populated in Direct URLs mode (Mode 3)
• In Search modes (Mode 1 & 2), this field is null since jobs from search results are assumed to be online
• Values:
  • online - Job page loaded successfully with content
  • offline - Job page returns 404 or "not found"
  • expired - Job explicitly marked as expired
  • unknown - Unable to determine status (page loaded but no clear job data)

Usage

Via Apify Console

1. Go to the actor page
2. Configure input parameters
3. Click "Start"
4. Download results from the Dataset tab (JSON, CSV, Excel)

Via API

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/santamaria~ictjobs-ch-scraper/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "searchQuery": "Python Developer",
    "region": "Zürich",
    "maxResults": 100
  }'

Via Apify SDK (Node.js)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('santamaria/ictjobs-ch-scraper').call({
  searchQuery: 'Cloud Engineer',
  region: 'Zürich',
  employmentType: 'full-time',
  maxResults: 150,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Found ${items.length} jobs`);

Technical Details

Data Sources

This actor uses HTML scraping with CheerioCrawler:

1. Main Listing Page (https://ictjobs.ch/)

   • Job cards in div.offer.publish elements
   • Pagination via /page/N/ URL pattern
   • Search support via ?fs=query parameter
   • Extracts: title, company, location, posted date

2. JSON-LD Schema.org (from job detail pages)

   • Structured JobPosting data
   • More detailed company information
   • Better date/location formatting
   • Employment type information

When includeJobDetails is enabled (default), the scraper visits detail pages for complete data.

Supported Employment Types

• full-time - Vollzeit positions
• part-time - Teilzeit positions
• internship - Praktikum
• contract - Vertrag/Contractor
• temporary - Temporär/Befristet

Search Mode (Modes 1 & 2)

• Uses WordPress pagination structure (/page/2/, /page/3/, etc.)
• Optionally applies search query via ?fs= parameter
• Optionally filters by category via /stellen-kategorie/{category}/
• Extracts job cards from each listing page
• Optionally visits detail pages for full data
• Respects maxResults limit

Direct URLs Mode (Mode 3)

• Skips search phase entirely
• Goes directly to provided job URLs
• Checks for 404/offline indicators
• Extracts JSON-LD structured data if available
• Extracts contact details from HTML
• Returns job_status field for monitoring

Performance

• Speed: ~50-100 jobs/minute (with detail fetching enabled)
• Cost: ~0.02-0.04 CU per 500 jobs
• Reliability: Built-in retry logic and error handling

Coverage

Ictjobs.ch focuses on IT jobs across all of Switzerland:

Region	Major Cities
Zürich	Zürich, Winterthur
Bern	Bern, Thun
Basel	Basel, Liestal
Romandie	Geneva, Lausanne, Fribourg
Ostschweiz	St. Gallen, Chur
Ticino	Lugano, Bellinzona

Common Use Cases

1. IT job market analysis: Track hiring trends in the Swiss IT sector
2. Competitive intelligence: Monitor competitors' IT hiring
3. Job aggregation: Build specialized IT job search platforms
4. Still-alive monitoring: Check if previously scraped jobs are still active (Direct URLs mode)
5. Post-deduplication enrichment: Scrape basic data first, then fetch details for new jobs only
6. Tech talent sourcing: Find IT candidates via company postings
7. Salary research: Analyze compensation ranges for IT roles

Data Source

This actor scrapes data from the leading Swiss IT job portal:

• Website: ictjobs.ch
• API: WordPress REST API
• Coverage: All of Switzerland, IT jobs only
• Jobs: 157+ categories, thousands of active listings

Legal Notice

This actor accesses publicly available job listings through the WordPress API and public web pages. Please ensure your use case complies with the ictjobs.ch terms of service.

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Part of the Santamaria Job Scrapers Suite - Professional-grade job data for the DACH region and beyond. Need help with integration, aggregation, or custom scraping solutions? Contact us at contact@alessandrosantamaria.com