Adzuna job links: what we measured, not what we hoped¶
Technical version: Adzuna: what we actually get from it (WING-333 research)
Date of measurements: 2026-08-05. Status: measured, not inferred.
Why this matters¶
WorkWingman can sometimes open an employer’s application system (Greenhouse, iCIMS, and so on) when a job link points there. Adzuna is a large job search API we use for breadth — more roles discovered. The research question was: do Adzuna rows actually resolve to employer application systems we can drive?
The honest short answer¶
Not automatically, today. Adzuna’s “land” and apply links are blocked for non-interactive clients (HTTP clients and headless browsers get 403 from a CloudFront edge). A normal headed browser can pass that wall, and a full manual click chain can eventually reach a real ATS such as iCIMS — but the hop often goes through another job board (Jobcase, ZipRecruiter) first, and the employer site may use a vanity URL that does not name the vendor until you read the page HTML.
So: value is real for discovery and, sometimes, for eventual ATS detection after hop 1; hop 1 itself is an anti-automation control, not a missing regex.
Defect we already fixed in tagging¶
Earlier, Adzuna rows were labeled with a fake “tenant host” taken from Adzuna’s own tracker URL and an “unknown” ATS kind, which made automation impossible while looking verified. Tagging was corrected so empty stays empty until verified.
Strategic context¶
Adzuna ships its own AI apply product (ApplyIQ). They have a commercial reason to defend automated traversal of their apply funnel. Circumventing that control is a business / terms decision, not “we just need better scraping.”
Recommended product posture from the research: ask Adzuna as a registered API consumer; ship discovery-only in the meantime (show the job; you open it yourself); do not claim ATS automation for Adzuna rows until hop 1 is legitimately solved.
Side effect: harder dedupe¶
Because Adzuna resells listings, the same real job can appear many ways with different titles and URLs. Aggregator rows make automatic “same job” matching harder. The reliable key is usually the vendor’s own posting id after a true ATS is known.