Zapply - Hacking Greenhouse and Lever
Cracking the Code: The Future of Automated Job Applications
🕵️♂️ The Problem: Automating Job Applications for Developers
In our quest to automate job applications for remote software engineers, we ran into a major challenge: Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are designed to prevent automation.
After researching the market, we identified that Greenhouse and Lever dominate the hiring process for tech jobs. These platforms handle thousands of job postings, making them critical targets for automation.
But there’s a catch: they don’t make it easy.
🔍 Phase 1: Hacking the Greenhouse Application Process with Bots
We started with a proof of concept (PoC) using Playwright to automate the application process for Greenhouse jobs. Initially, everything seemed straightforward—filling out forms, uploading a resume, and clicking submit.
Then, we hit two major roadblocks:
🛑 1) Greenhouse’s Custom Bot Protection
The first line of defense was an email verification system that detected automated behavior and triggered a 6-digit email verification code before allowing applications to proceed.
✅ How We Bypassed It:
- We used Playwright to simulate human-like behavior, including:
- Randomized mouse movements
- Delayed typing inputs
- Scrolling naturally
- We integrated BrightData’s rotating residential proxies to mask our traffic and avoid bot detection.
💡 Result: We successfully bypassed the email verification trigger and moved forward in the application process.
🤖 2) The Google reCAPTCHA Enterprise Wall
Just when we thought we had won… Google’s reCAPTCHA Enterprise appeared.
This is not the usual easy-to-bypass reCAPTCHA v2. Google Enterprise reCAPTCHA is AI-powered, constantly evolving, and extremely difficult to trick.
🛠️ We tried the usual approaches:
- Solving it manually – obviously not scalable.
- Using 2Captcha – slow, unreliable, and often detected.
- Trying automated solutions – reCAPTCHA kept blocking us.
💡 Result: This is still a work in progress. Captcha-solving at this level is proving to be a massive challenge.
🔄 Pivoting to a More Sustainable Solution: APIs
Since captcha-solving is unpredictable, expensive, and unreliable, we started looking at a more stable solution: direct API integration with Greenhouse and Lever.
The idea? Instead of breaking through security with bots, why not use their official APIs to submit applications?
📡 Phase 2: Contacting Greenhouse & Lever for API Access
Both Greenhouse and Lever offer APIs, but there are two big concerns:
1️⃣ Pricing – Enterprise ATS solutions can be extremely expensive.
2️⃣ Will they work with indie hackers? – We’re not a large recruiting firm; we’re a small startup.
🤝 Our Plan:
- We contacted both Greenhouse and Lever, explaining Zapply’s mission and requesting API access for:
- Job data retrieval (getting job details by job ID).
- Application submission (sending applications via API).
- We’re now waiting for their response to see if this is financially viable and technically possible.
🚀 Next Steps: Hacking + API + A Decision in One Week
🛠️ What We’re Doing Now:
✅ Continuing to work on bot-based automation while we wait.
✅ Exploring alternative captcha-solving techniques to break reCAPTCHA Enterprise.
✅ Waiting for Greenhouse & Lever’s response to determine if API access is a better solution.
📅 ETA: We expect to have a clear answer within the next week.
At that point, we’ll decide whether to pursue bot automation, API integration, or a hybrid approach.
🔥 Final Thoughts: The Future of Job Application Automation
✅ If API access works, we’ll have a scalable, legal way to automate applications.
❌ If API pricing is too high, we may need to double down on bot automation.
🤖 Either way, automation is coming.
👉 One way or another, we’re going to crack this problem. Stay tuned. 🚀
