From the blog · Page 5
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.
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.
Talent intelligence platforms in 2026: the categories, the vendors, and the data underneath
Talent intelligence is one label on three different products: market intelligence built on job postings, profile-based platforms built on people data, and the build-your-own layer both of them sit on. Which vendors belong to which category, what the data underneath actually is, and when building on a data API beats buying a platform.
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.
Free job APIs in 2026: what's actually free, what's free-tier, and what's a trap
Free means four different things in the jobs API market, and the difference is what burns people. A verified comparison of 11 options, with the real limits, the key requirements, and the redistribution terms nobody reads.
Bright Data competitors: 8 alternatives compared for web data and job postings
Bright Data is the biggest general-purpose web data platform, and for some jobs it is the wrong shape. Eight alternatives compared on category, pricing model and fit, including when a narrow vertical API beats a scraping platform.
An API for job search: the architecture behind a search box that returns real jobs
What has to happen between a user typing into a box and getting good jobs back: query understanding, filters, ranking, cursor pagination, caching, and the empty state everyone gets wrong.