Adzuna API alternative for full job descriptions and stored job boards
Compare Adzuna’s search API with The Jobs API for complete job pages, application destinations, salary provenance and a maintained US or Canadian inventory.
The Jobs API editorial teamPublished · 6 min read
The short answer
The Jobs API is an Adzuna API alternative when your product needs full job descriptions and a maintained US or Canadian catalogue. Adzuna’s public search documentation says its responses provide description snippets; its separate data offering may provide more. Evaluate the specific product you can access, then compare detail completeness, update handling and permitted use.
Why does description length change the product?
A short excerpt can work well on a search-results card. A detailed job page needs enough information for an applicant to assess the role: qualifications, responsibilities, working arrangements, compensation context and application instructions. If your source provides only a snippet, the rest of that experience must come from another authorized source or a different product.
Adzuna’s public search guide explicitly describes snippet responses. Its main developer site also mentions a broader data offering with full details. That distinction is important: this article compares the documented public search interface, not every dataset or commercial agreement Adzuna may offer.
The Jobs API supports full text and HTML descriptions for published jobs, with available extra source fields. This makes it a practical alternative for a board that wants substantive job pages and its own search experience. We publish this guide, so apply the same completeness checks to our sample records as to any competitor.
Which interface should a publisher evaluate?
| Product need | Evidence to request | Decision it supports |
|---|---|---|
| Search cards linking elsewhere | Response fields, attribution and destination behavior | Whether the search experience fits your site |
| Complete job detail pages | Actual full descriptions and storage/display terms | Whether users can evaluate the role on your page |
| Saved jobs and alerts | Stable identity and lifecycle information | Whether your stored inventory can stay current |
| Salary visualizations | Salary provenance, normalization and statistical methods | Whether figures mean what your chart implies |
Do not infer storage, redistribution or AI-use rights from the fact that an endpoint is reachable. Confirm the agreement for your intended product with each provider. This is a purchasing requirement, not an assertion that one vendor’s access automatically grants broader rights than another’s.
An inexpensive search feed can be the right answer for a publisher whose product is referral traffic. A maintained catalogue can be the right answer for a product that stores records, builds custom ranking and sends alerts. The best choice starts with what users will do on your site.
How can you audit full descriptions?
Pick a varied set of source postings and compare the returned content with the employer’s original page. Mark whether duties, requirements, benefits, schedules and application instructions survive. Inspect both meaning and formatting. A long string can still omit the section that matters most to an applicant.
For an illustrative ten-record check, suppose all ten include duties but only six retain eligibility restrictions. Reporting “ten complete descriptions” would hide the defect. Record completeness by section and mark the records that cannot support your product’s promise. A remote-job app might treat missing eligibility as a launch blocker.
When HTML is supplied, sanitize it before rendering. Preserve headings and lists where appropriate, but do not execute embedded scripts or treat source markup as trusted application code. Keep the original data separately from any display transformation so future parser changes can be investigated.
Do not generate missing qualifications to make a record look complete. If you summarize the posting, label the summary and provide the source description. Applicants should be able to distinguish the employer’s requirements from your product’s interpretation.
How should application destinations be compared?
Record the destination a real applicant reaches, not just the existence of a URL field. A job-specific employer page, a publisher redirect and a general careers homepage create different journeys. Verify that the chosen link still corresponds to the same requisition after navigation.
Adzuna’s documented search response includes a redirect_url. In The Jobs API, inspect the original job URL and the separate application URL when one is available. Neither a field name nor a recognizable company domain proves that the vacancy is still active; checking the link is part of quality evaluation.
Define a fallback for jobs without a distinct apply URL. A working original job page may be sufficient. A fabricated destination is not. If users save jobs, retain the source identity with their saved record so a later update does not silently point their application button at a different role.
What does salary provenance add to a comparison?
Compare what a salary value represents before using it as a sorting or filtering field. Employer-disclosed base pay, total compensation, a normalized annual estimate and a market prediction answer different questions. Displaying all four as “salary” can make an apparently complete dataset misleading.
Adzuna’s search examples include a salary_is_predicted field. Preserve that distinction when using those responses. For any provider, check currency, period, minimum and maximum, location-specific bands and whether the underlying text actually supports the displayed figure.
The Jobs API separates available source facts from derived information. Optional-field availability varies by employer. Measure how often a required field is available separately from whether its non-empty values are correct. A null value can be the accurate answer when the employer did not publish pay.
How do you maintain a stored board after launch?
Your integration needs to handle changes as well as first imports. A job missing from one query result is not necessarily closed. It may have moved outside a filter, changed its title or disappeared behind a temporary source failure. Decide what evidence triggers removal and keep uncertainty visible.
The Jobs API provides an ordered changes endpoint on every plan, with distinct expiration and exclusion events. Its scope is country-wide, which matters for niche-board usage. The separate expired-ID feed starts at the 20,000-job paid tier, while the modified feed starts at 50,000.
Plan the cost of initial imports, new records, updates, detail reads and reconciliation. Our entry subscription is $50 USD monthly for 20,000 jobs and 10,000 requests. That is a concrete budget for our service, not a claim that paid API access is always cheaper than a publisher arrangement. Compare your complete workflow and agreement.
When should you choose The Jobs API or keep Adzuna?
Choose The Jobs API when a US or Canadian product needs complete posting details, source context and documented inventory maintenance. Use a trial to verify the employers and fields that matter to your audience. The seven-day trial provides 500 jobs and 50 requests without a card.
Keep Adzuna in the shortlist when its search-publishing workflow or employment-data endpoints match the product you want to build. Its overview documents salary and vacancy data in addition to job search. Those are different needs from rendering a current employer posting and should be evaluated as such.
If you need full details through a separate Adzuna offering, compare that actual proposal with our API rather than assuming the snippet interface represents all of its capabilities. A useful comparison names the product, access conditions and acceptance tests precisely.
Questions people ask
Does Adzuna’s public search API return full descriptions?
Its search documentation says responses contain snippets. Adzuna also advertises a broader data offering, so confirm the exact product and access agreement before drawing conclusions about all of its services.
Why choose The Jobs API for a stored board?
It offers full posting descriptions and documented search, detail and lifecycle endpoints for US and Canadian job products. Verify your required employer coverage during the trial.
Should predicted salary be displayed as employer pay?
No. Preserve the distinction between an employer statement, a normalization and an estimate, including currency and time period.
Does API access automatically permit any reuse?
No. Confirm that your agreement covers your intended storage, display, distribution and other uses. Evaluate the specific product and terms offered to you.