Building a Lead Scanner to Filter Out Stale Freelance Jobs

Description and use

An automated job‑board scanner that hourly fetches listings, filters out stale or unwanted posts using a recency window and regex rules, and stores only fresh freelance opportunities in a local SQLite database for quick review.

Problem

Finding solid freelance gigs required spending an hour or more each morning sifting through stale or irrelevant job board listings.

Outcome

The lead‑scanner reduces manual search time by filtering out stale and unwanted listings, yielding a concise daily queue of relevant freelance opportunities.

Workflow

• 1. Hourly fetch of job board posts
• 2. Evaluate post timestamps against a strict recency window (12–24 h)
• 3. Normalize raw board data via board‑specific adapter modules into a standard schema
• 4. Apply deterministic exclusion rules using regex patterns on title and body
• 5. Store passing leads in a local SQLite database
• 6. View the cleaned queue through a simple local web interface

Evidence

I built a lightweight lead‑scanner that runs on my home automation server and checks a handful of tech‑focused boards every hour.

Source

Depending on the board's volume, my window is usually set between 12 and 24 hours.

Source

I use simple regular expression checks against the title and description body.

Source