From the blog · Page 15
How we build, what we learn, what we ship.
Posts about indexing public job postings at scale, salary parsing, and the systems that keep one universal JSON schema feeling small even as the source list keeps growing.
Every job posting, classified: ISCO-08 occupations, ISIC industries and skills, live on the API
Every posting in the JobsPipe index now carries an ISCO-08 occupation code, the employer's ISIC Rev.4 industry division and a curated skills profile - as raw codes plus labels, filterable on every plan. Industry coverage is 90% of half a million live postings, and a Labour Market Insights API ships alongside it. Here is what shipped, how the classification works, and why we chose UN and ILO standards over a proprietary ontology.
Job ads, job postings, vacancies: the vocabulary of job ad data, explained
A job ad, a job posting and a vacancy are not the same thing, and the difference is where most job-market analysis goes wrong. What each term means, why Europeans say ad and Americans say posting, how one vacancy becomes five ads, and what that means for anyone counting them.
Help wanted ads: from newspaper classifieds to structured job data
Help wanted ads ran in newspapers for two centuries before moving online in a decade. Where the classified job ad went, what replaced it at every step - job boards, aggregators, ATS feeds - and how the same ads that once filled a page of newsprint became a dataset economists mine.
SOC codes: the Standard Occupational Classification, explained (2026)
Every US wage statistic, H-1B filing and prevailing wage determination is keyed to a SOC code - and half the roles people search for don't have one. How the 2018 SOC system works, the codes for common tech roles, what changed from the old 15-1132, and what to do when your job title has no code of its own.
O*NET API: free occupational data from the Department of Labor
O*NET Web Services is one of the best free APIs nobody talks about - every US occupation with its skills, tasks, technologies and crosswalks, keyed in minutes. What the API returns, how the O*NET-SOC taxonomy works, the whole-database download most people should use instead, and what O*NET structurally cannot tell you: live demand.
Skills taxonomies compared: O*NET, ESCO, Lightcast Open Skills and the vendor stacks
Every skills-based-hiring initiative and every talent intelligence platform stands on a skills taxonomy, and the four big ones disagree about what a skill even is. O*NET, ESCO, Lightcast Open Skills and the proprietary vendor taxonomies compared on size, license, update cadence and fit - plus how raw job postings turn into taxonomy rows in the first place.
Pearson Workforce Solutions API (Faethm): what it offers, and how access works
Pearson's workforce API - built on the Faethm acquisition - models how technology impacts occupations: emerging and declining skills, task-level AI exposure, learning pathways, and an O*NET crosswalk. Every endpoint group in the reference, the JWT-gated access model with no public pricing, and where a live postings feed fits alongside it.
Lightcast alternatives: 7 options for labor market data in 2026
Lightcast is the standard for labor market intelligence - and for many buyers it is more platform than they need, at a price that is never on the website. Seven alternatives compared by what you were actually buying: postings feeds, European coverage, workforce analytics, free official statistics, and the self-serve API tier Lightcast does not sell.
Artificial intelligence in talent acquisition: what it actually changes (2026)
AI has landed in five places in talent acquisition - sourcing, screening, scheduling, outreach, and market intelligence - and it changes them unevenly. What each application actually automates, the regulation that now applies to all of them, and the constraint every vendor demo skips: the model is a commodity, the data underneath is not.