US 7,680,854 B2Granted

System and method for improved job seeking

AssigneeYahoo! Inc.

InventorsAdam Hyder, Sandeep Khanna, Pal Takacsi-Nagy

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Abstract

A computer system and method for capture and handling job listings obtained from various often unrelated corporate and job board postings via the internet for examination by a job searcher. This system includes a scraping module having one or more scraping engines operable to scrape job information data set from job listings on the corporate career sites and job boards, wherein the scraping module receives and stores the scraped job information data set in a database. The system also has a scraping management interface module coordinating operation of and communication between the scraping engines and the career sites and job boards, a scraped listing quality management module coupled to the scraping management interface module analyzing selected scraped job information data stored in the database, and a job categorization module that examines and categorizes each job information stored in the database into one or more of a predetermined set of categories and returns categorized job information to the database, and an extractor module communicating with the database for compiling and transferring categorized job information data from the database to a search bank. The search bank is then accessible by a job searcher through a job search client server cluster connected to the Internet.

Claims35

Dependent claims

A computer system comprising:

a plurality of processors;
a scraping module implemented on one of the plurality of processors having one or more scraping engines operable to scrape a job information data set from job listings on corporate career sites and job boards, wherein the scraping module receives and stores the scraped job information data sets in a database, the job information data sets each comprising data fields;
a scraping management interface module implemented on one of the plurality of processors for coordinating operation of and communication between the scraping engines and the career sites and job boards;
a scraped listing quality management module implemented on one of the plurality of processors coupled to the scraping management interface module for analyzing data fields of selected scraped job information data sets stored in the database for conformance to predetermined listing quality criteria, the quality management module comprising a de-duplication sub-module for eliminating prior scraped information data, a dead link removal sub-module, and a text filtering sub-module for filtering offensive text;
a job categorization module implemented on one of the plurality of processors operable to examine and categorize each job information data set stored in the database into one or more of a predetermined set of categories and return categorized job information data to the database;
wherein the job categorization module further comprises
a categorization database, and
a document categorization platform service determining a confidence value in each predetermined category for each scraped job information data set by comparing text of each scraped job information data set with previously categorized job information text in the categorization database;
an extractor module implemented on one of the plurality of processors for communicating with the database for compiling and transferring categorized job information data from the database to a search bank;
a premium listing module implemented on one of the plurality of processors operable to prioritize display of job information presented to the job searcher based on paid advertising from employers;
and
an output implemented on one of the plurality of processors coupled to the search bank and communicatively coupled to the job searcher for communicating the results of a job search query of the search bank to the searcher for visible display on a user interface.

9 more elements

A method comprising:

scraping, by a processor, job information data sets from one or more job listings on one or more corporate career sites or job boards;
storing, by the processor, the scraped job information data set corresponding to each scraped job listing in a database, each job information data set comprising data fields;
analyzing, by the processor, the data fields of each scraped job information data set stored in the database for conformance to predetermined quality criteria comprising elimination of duplication of prior scraped information data sets, removal of dead links, and filtering of offensive text;
categorizing, by the processor, each job information data set stored in the database into one or more predetermined job categories and returning the categorized job information data sets to the database;
transferring, by the processor, categorized job information data sets from the database to the search bank;
obtaining and storing, by the processor, paid job information data sets from paid job advertisers in a paid search bank for subsequent presentation to a job searcher in conjunction with scraped job information data sets in response to a job searcher's query;
and
communicating, by the processor, a query result to the job searcher,
wherein the categorizing step further comprises
comparing text of each scraped job information data set with previously categorized job information text in a categorization database, and
determining a confidence value in each predetermined category for each scraped job information data set.

8 more elements

A method comprising:

scraping, by a processor, job information data sets from one or more job listings on one or more corporate career sites or job boards;
storing, by the processor, a scraped job information data set corresponding to each scraped job listing in a database, the scraped job information data set comprising data fields;
analyzing, by the processor, data fields of each scraped job information data set stored in the database for conformance to predetermined quality criteria, elimination of duplication of prior scraped information data, removal of dead links, and filtering of offensive text;
categorizing, by the processor, each job information data set stored in the database into one or more predetermined job categories and returning the categorized job information data set to the database;
presenting, by the processor and to an administrator a user interface displaying a selection of one of the scraped job information data sets for review from the database for review along with a predetermined confidence level for each of a plurality of categories determined from a plurality of parameters used to determine the predetermined confidence level;
permitting, by the processor, the administrator to change one of the plurality of parameters if the highest confidence level does not correspond to an appropriate category for that job information data set;
returning, by the processor, the job information data set to the database;
and
repeating, by the processor, the presenting, permitting and returning operations for a next job information data set;
transferring, by the processor, categorized job information data sets from the database to a search bank;
obtaining and storing, by the processor, paid job information from paid job advertisers in a paid search bank for subsequent presentation to a job searcher in conjunction with scraped job information data sets in response to a job searcher's query;
and
communicating, by the processor, a query result to the job searcher,
wherein the categorizing each job information data set further comprises
comparing text of each scraped job information data set with previously categorized job information text in a job categorization database, and
determining a confidence value in each predetermined category for each scraped job information data set.

13 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.