Automatically apply for jobs on LinkedIn (Python + Selenium): Project Setup

Summary

In AI Coding's latest tutorial, a project setup using Python and Selenium automates job applications on LinkedIn. This initial part of the series focuses on setting up an RPA tool to tackle repetitive tasks—like applying for jobs—efficiently. By utilizing Selenium, the video demonstrates how to automate browser actions such as login, job search, and applying via the 'easy apply' button. The project is broken down into manageable steps, ensuring viewers can follow along and build their own automation scripts. This setup phase involves downloading necessary drivers, creating configuration files, and preparing the development environment.

Highlights

• Automation in action: Use Selenium to reduce job application time drastically! 🚀
• Setup instructions are clear and beginner-friendly, guiding you from start to finish. 📚
• The tutorial emphasizes security with proper management of credentials in configuration files. 🔑
• Hands-on demo includes real-world examples, making learning interactive and engaging! 🎯
• Break down complex tasks into simple steps with this guided setup process. 🛠️

Key Takeaways

• Learn to automate job applications on LinkedIn using Python and Selenium! 🤖
• Understand the basics of RPA and how it can streamline repetitive tasks. ⚙️
• Get step-by-step instructions on setting up Selenium for browser automation. 🖥️
• Master setting up your development environment with virtual environments and required packages. 💻
• Discover best practices for managing sensitive information with configuration files. 🔐

Overview

In this engaging video tutorial by AI Coding, viewers are introduced to a project that automates LinkedIn job applications using Python and Selenium. The creator starts with an overview of Robotic Process Automation (RPA), a technology that can handle repetitive tasks traditionally performed by humans. Through this tool, you can automate the process of applying for jobs, making it an invaluable asset for job seekers in the digital age.

Following the introduction, the video walks through the setup process, which includes downloading and configuring necessary tools like web drivers and setting up a virtual environment using Python. The emphasis is on making the process accessible, even for those new to coding and automation. Steps such as identifying the correct driver version for your browser and organizing project files and folders are covered.

To ensure user security and flexibility, the video advises incorporating configuration files to manage sensitive information like login credentials separately from the main script. This best practice not only secures personal data but also makes it easy to update parameters without altering the code extensively. The video concludes with a successful test run, showing the automation tool initializing and preparing for subsequent functional tests in upcoming tutorials.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to RPA and Project Overview In this introductory chapter, the speaker welcomes viewers to their latest video, focusing on a popular project available on GitHub. The project is an RPA (Robotic Process Automation) tool designed for applying to jobs on LinkedIn. The chapter begins with a brief explanation of what RPA entails, describing it as intelligent software used to manage high-volume, repetitive tasks that were traditionally done manually.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Introduction to Selenium and Project Demo The chapter introduces the concept of Selenium and demonstrates its application through a project demo. It serves as an introduction to Robotic Process Automation (RPA) which involves using automated processes to handle tasks that typically require human intervention. Examples of RPA tasks mentioned include handling queries, managing call center operations, web scraping, and building analytics reports from consistent data sets. The project will explore these applications in detail.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Project Setup: Downloading Web Driver The chapter introduces the setup of a project that utilizes Selenium, a framework for automating browsers, particularly for testing web applications. The focus will be on using the Selenium Python bindings. The chapter also includes a brief demonstration of how the project will appear once completed.
• 05:00 - 08:00: Creating Project Structure and Virtual Environment In this chapter, the process of setting up a project structure and creating a virtual environment is discussed. The demonstration begins with running a command from the terminal to open the Lincoln website. It outlines how to log in using your email and password, search for a Machine Engineer job in the United States, and apply filters to refine the job positions.
• 08:00 - 15:00: Configuring Project Files The chapter titled 'Configuring Project Files' discusses the process of applying for jobs using the easy apply method. It emphasizes applying only to jobs that allow for direct submission through the easy apply button. It suggests viewers can experiment and add complexity by building their application process further.
• 15:00 - 17:00: Initializing Selenium Web Driver The chapter discusses the advanced use of Selenium Web Driver for automation, emphasizing that it's not just limited to using the 'easy apply' feature but can be expanded to apply through various websites. It encourages diversifying the automation processes such as submitting CVs and exploring multiple functionalities of Selenium. Additionally, the chapter provides guidance on where to find relevant documentation and resources, specifically pointing to a GitHub repository containing a readme with more details.
• 17:00 - 18:00: Conclusion and Next Steps ### Conclusion and Next Steps This chapter outlines the necessary steps to successfully implement the discussed project. It covers the main components including the main application and configuration file. The chapter is organized into four steps: 1. **Setting Up the Project**: Guidance on the initial setup of the project, explaining the foundational steps necessary to begin development. 2. **Further Steps**: Though not detailed in the provided text, it implies further instructions and enhancements will be provided following the setup phase. The chapter aims to prepare the reader for practical application and continued learning beyond the tutorial.

Automatically apply for jobs on LinkedIn (Python + Selenium): Project Setup Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hello everyone welcome to my new video today I would like to showcase one of my most popular projects on github I'm gonna showcase how I build it it's an RPA tool for applying to LinkedIn jobs so is this one over here and what is RPA you might be wondering well RPA I describe it as the use of intelligent software to handle high-volume repeatable tasks that previously
• 00:30 - 01:00 required humans to perform and RPA stands for robotic process automation so a couple of examples from RPA would be handling queries handling call center operations web scrubbing or for example building analytics report that will be the same type of data the data that you want to analyze on those reports so in this project we're going
• 01:00 - 01:30 to be using a framework called selenium so selenium basically automates browsers it is a framework for testing web applications and we're gonna be primarily using the selenium Python bindings for this project I'm gonna show you a quick demo of how the project would look like after a building it so
• 01:30 - 02:00 as you can see in this demo I'm just going to run it from the terminal and it pops up the lincoln website and it logs in with your credentials using your email and your password then it looks for a job in this case machine an engineer in a specific location in this case is the United States and then the application filters the job positions by
• 02:00 - 02:30 easy apply and then for each job application that shows in each of the pages we're going to be applying with the easy applied bottom and it would only be doing this with the applications that only requires to submit the application directly if you want to try to do it for yourself and try to make it more complex you can also try to build
• 02:30 - 03:00 the same tool and not only use the easy apply button but just make it more complex and just apply through other websites and try to submit your CV you can do a lot of different things with this selenium or automation test process okay so if you go to my github and you open the link you can find the readme with
• 03:00 - 03:30 all the steps that you have to undertake to make this work and the program itself so you have the main application that we're gonna build configuration file that I'm gonna tell you why we're doing this and how to build it and I decided to divide this tutorial in four steps so this first part I'm going to show you how to set up the project the second
• 03:30 - 04:00 tutorial will be how to log in and do your job search the third tutorial will be filter and finding job offers and the fourth tutorial is about submitting the application and closing the selenium session so let's go to it okay so the very first thing that we have to do is to actually download a web driver a web
• 04:00 - 04:30 driver is basically the web driver drives a browser natively as just a user will do as if you would be just browsing your web since I'm using Chrome for showcase and I will be downloading a chrome driver and if you go to github as well you're gonna find the
• 04:30 - 05:00 link to download the white webdriver just here I forgot to mention that all the lists I will provide in the description of this video so you would have my github repository attached and the drivers as well but as I said you can find everything just in the github repository as well so go here if we open this tab you can see that you're gonna have a lot of different web drivers and
• 05:00 - 05:30 versions so if you don't know where your which version you have you just have to quickly come to health and about Google Chrome and you will easily find this so I already check which one is mine and mine is 83 points your 0.41 o 3.39 and
• 05:30 - 06:00 make sure that you download the one specific to your OS I'm on Mac so I will download this one okay so once it downloads what we're gonna do is we're gonna extract this chrome driver and we're gonna place it in our project setup okay so in your project setup what you have to do is we're gonna create a new folder then we're gonna call driver
• 06:00 - 06:30 path or just driver and then we're gonna put inside our unseat chromedriver that we just downloaded okay so now we can start building our project okay so the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to navigate to our project folder
• 06:30 - 07:00 and we're gonna fire up our anaconda distribution I use Nichole network with Python you can basically use whatever you like using and I like also working with virtual environments so I'm just going to create a realtor environment for this project just like very quickly just call it selenium pie and we're
• 07:00 - 07:30 gonna be using Python 3.7 yes so I'd like to keep all my projects in different virtual environments and we
• 07:30 - 08:00 can just fire up our Visual Studio code there you go and we check that we have our what the driver for Chrome here okay so another thing that we have to do is to install is a named package I specified here how you can do that you can install it using keep install
• 08:00 - 08:30 selenium I am using HMDA right now so I'm gonna be using Conda install silly new and that's about it okay so the next step that we're going to do for this setup we're gonna make our two fouls that I mentioned before so our main
• 08:30 - 09:00 script Python script and our configuration file that I just quickly mention so I like using this configuration files mainly because you can just easily configure the parameters and initial settings for your program and if anything changes like you know
• 09:00 - 09:30 right now we're gonna configure it our email and password so if you change your password for example you wouldn't have to change each line of your main script but you would just use your configuration file and that's about it you only have to switch maybe one line of this code from the configuration file and you wouldn't have to change everything from here so it's a very good practice okay so what is the configuration file going to contain well
• 09:30 - 10:00 I describe it here as well let's just think this basically you need a couple of things for making this project work you will need an email to login in to link it in you will need your password for the login you will need some keywords for finding specific job titles and you're gonna need the location where you're currently looking
• 10:00 - 10:30 for position and the driver path where your web driver is located which in this case we have located in our own project and it's called driver so let's go to it okay so let's just build our have the keyword in so many different languages so I have to change consul okay so we need an email
• 10:30 - 11:00 this is my official in in case you have questions you can also contact me through that you know a password which obviously I'm not gonna show but I will configure a little for make the program
• 11:00 - 11:30 work a key word keyboard set of key words in my case I'm just gonna look for machine learning engineer positions a location I'm gonna say that's where they stop and a driver path which industries
• 11:30 - 12:00 its called driver perfect now we save it so once you have configure your JSON file we're just gonna start building our main script so of course the first thing that we have to do is to import the package to use the web driver this is
• 12:00 - 12:30 because I am NOT [Music]
• 12:30 - 13:00 so with this we're going to be able to use our web driver and to indicate exactly the actions that we want to perform as if we were a user so we're just gonna create a class called easy by linking and we're gonna make our constructor we're we gonna initialize our object parameters so I can call this
• 13:00 - 13:30 time a sensation I didn't close here - [Music] then we will
• 13:30 - 14:00 call this let's call it a bot is your prior thinking and as you see um housing an object here which is the data file this is our configuration file over here so we need to read Reggie's on file with the data that we're going to initialize here so we open that JSON data and we
• 14:00 - 14:30 pass our data okay so we're just gonna go quickly the
• 14:30 - 15:00 constructor so email is data and I still remember the configuration file it was called email so ask for data password so that you're the keywords so that location they will equals data location
• 15:00 - 15:30 and so that driver equals here we're gonna read our Chrome web driver so what drivers are from as you can see there are different type of work drivers so if you were Android you would choose Android if your age would use age Safari Firefox whatever what you're
• 15:30 - 16:00 using I'm using Chrome so one driving pro data driver path okay so we're gonna quickly try this out and as the test we should probably gonna get this driver up and running so we're gonna see how a crumb page will just pop up so I will go
• 16:00 - 16:30 to the terminal and yeah so a web driver has pop up and he says chrome is being controlled by automated test software and that's about it that's about it for now so this is the
• 16:30 - 17:00 first tutorial how to set up the project and how to initialize the parameters and I hope you like it and I hope to see you on the next video on how to login into LinkedIn and how to make your first job search or out de Mai Tai's job search thank you so much and if you liked the video please subscribe