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Locations

Locations specify the geographical location of a position. Precisely locating positions helps candidates search for the most relevant jobs. They are also used as an input into SEEK’s ad pricing.Locations are represented as a hierarchy from a larger parent location to smaller child locations.The hierarchy supports increased granularity in core Asia-Pacific locations where the SEEK Group operates. It starts with top-level areas and becomes more specific until an individual suburb is identified, and is designed to be continuously revised to address gaps and realignments over time.
Code
Name
AU
Australia
HK
Hong Kong
ID
Indonesia
MY
Malaysia
NZ
New Zealand
PH
The Philippines
SG
Singapore
TH
Thailand
The hierarchy only extends to the country level (e.g. Fiji) outside of these core Asia-Pacific locations.For example, this is a subset of the location hierarchy for Victoria, Australia:

Remote work

If a hirer is recruiting for a remote position that is not tied to a specific geographical location, they can set seekWorkArrangementCodes to Remote.A location is still required for a remote position; this can be set to the headquarters or local branch of the hirer’s organization.

Before you begin

  • SEEK recommends using a browser token to query locations directly from a hirer’s browser. For the browser token to work, you will need to include the query:ontologies scope in your request.
  • You can also query locations from your backend using a partner token.

Contextual names

SEEK’s location queries return a common Location object that has both a name and a contextualName. When displaying a list of locations to a hirer, you should use the contextualName as it provides more precise information. For example, when displaying the results of the locationSuggestions query to a user, some results may be ambiguous if only the name value is displayed.
name
contextualName
Richmond
Richmond NSW 2753 AU
Richmond
Richmond VIC 3121 AU
Richmond
Richmond Otago NZ

Implementation options

Locations can be implemented in one of three ways. These are listed in order of preference.

Option 1: Build a SEEK-specific location input

You can include a SEEK-specific auto-suggest field in your job posting flow. This affords the most control to your hirers, as they get to explicitly select the SEEK location for their job ad.
Suggestions will appear below the field as you type
Open in StorybookExample code on GitHub
Relevant SEEK locations can be retrieved from the locationSuggestions query as the hirer types. The hirer’s identifier should be supplied to the query to tailor suggestions to their SEEK-configured domicile.The Detect button is an optional feature that allows the hirer to use their current location. You can obtain a latitude and longitude from the geolocation API of their device or browser, then pass that into the nearestLocations query. The first returned result represents the closest SEEK location to the provided geolocation by distance.

Option 2: Map from your internal location hierarchy

If your software already captures the position location based on an internal hierarchy, you may wish to map this existing value to a SEEK location without additional input from the hirer. This requires you to have the latitude and longitude associated with each location in your internal hierarchy.In your job posting flow, prompt the user to select a location from your internal hierarchy as per usual. Your software should then retrieve the associated geolocation and pass it into the nearestLocations query as described in Option 1.We recommend running this query at time of job posting to ensure that you retrieve the latest SEEK location match. You may use this method to build a mapping from your internal locations to their corresponding SEEK location IDs upfront, but the mapping should be periodically refreshed to handle changes to the SEEK location hierarchy.

Option 3: Use location inference

If you don’t have the latitude and longitude associated with each location in your internal hierarchy, you may use other structured information to infer a SEEK location without additional input from the hirer.In your job posting flow, prompt the user to select a location from your internal hierarchy as per usual. Your software should then retrieve structured address details of the location and pass it into the inferLocation query.We recommend running this query at time of job posting to ensure that you retrieve the latest SEEK location match. You may use this method to build a mapping from your internal locations to their corresponding SEEK location IDs upfront, but the mapping should be periodically refreshed to handle changes to the SEEK location hierarchy and improvements to our inference capability.

Operations

The SEEK API provides four queries for looking up locations:
  1. locationSuggestions returns locations matching partial text input for an interactive autocomplete user experience.
  2. nearestLocations returns locations relevant to the provided geolocation, ordered by distance.
  3. inferLocation returns a location matching structured address details for programmatic mapping.
  4. location returns a location for a given SEEK location ID.

locationSuggestions

The locationSuggestions query returns an array of likely locations for partial text input. You can limit the number of results using the first argument.This currently expects a substring of a location’s name (e.g. a suburb or city name). Street addresses are not supported, and postcodes are only supported in Australia at this time.You must use the PositionPosting usage type when the suggestions will be used for posting a job ad. This filters out locations that are too general to be associated with a job ad.
QueryVariablesResult
CopyGraphQL Explorer
query (
  $first: Int!
  $hirerId: String!
  $schemeId: String!
  $text: String!
  $usageTypeCode: String!
) {
  locationSuggestions(
    first: $first
    hirerId: $hirerId
    schemeId: $schemeId
    text: $text
    usageTypeCode: $usageTypeCode
  ) {
    location {
      id {
        value
      }
      contextualName
      countryCode


      # Enable your software to pre-select a salary currency
      currencies {
        code
      }
    }
  }
}

nearestLocations

The nearestLocations query returns an array of locations closest to the specified latitude & longitude, ordered by distance. You can limit the number of results using the first argument.This can be used to:
  • Suggest the location nearest to an end user based on their geolocation from a built-in platform  or web  API.
  • Map from your own internal location hierarchy to a SEEK location.
QueryVariablesResult
CopyGraphQL Explorer
query ($first: Int!, $geoLocation: GeoLocationInput!, $schemeId: String!) {
  nearestLocations(
    first: $first
    geoLocation: $geoLocation
    schemeId: $schemeId
  ) {
    id {
      value
    }
    contextualName
    countryCode


    # Enable your software to pre-select a salary currency
    currencies {
      code
    }
  }
}

inferLocation

The inferLocation query returns a location matching structured address details for programmatic mapping. This query will attempt to match the details to a location in our hierarchy on a best-effort basis.
QueryVariablesResult
CopyGraphQL Explorer
query ($address: SeekPositionAddressInput!, $schemeId: String!) {
  inferLocation(address: $address, schemeId: $schemeId) {
    id {
      value
    }


    # Enable your software to pre-select a salary currency
    currencies {
      code
    }
  }
}
If your location hierarchy lacks separate postalCode data, you can provide the address as a single formatted line along with a country code, though this may produce less consistent results for some locations:
QueryVariablesResult
CopyGraphQL Explorer
query ($address: SeekPositionAddressInput!, $schemeId: String!) {
  inferLocation(address: $address, schemeId: $schemeId) {
    id {
      value
    }


    # Enable your software to pre-select a salary currency
    currencies {
      code
    }
  }
}

inferLocation input formats

SEEK will infer a location based on the closest match to the supplied text. You should test and fine tune the data format provided by your software, starting with the following recommended baselines:
Country
Fields
Example formattedAddress
Example countryCode
Example postCode
Response contextualName
Australia
suburb
Cremorne
AU
3121
Cremorne VIC 3121 AU
Australia
suburb, state
Richmond, VIC
AU
3121
Richmond VIC 3121 AU
New Zealand
suburb, region 
Richmond, Tasman
NZ
Richmond, Tasman NZ
Philippines
city
Makati
PH
Makati City Metro Manila PH
Singapore
city
Tiong Bahru
SG
150167
Tiong Bahru Central Region SG
Malaysia
city, province/state
George Town, Penang
MY
George Town Penang MY
Indonesia
city, province/state
Kembangan, Jakarta
ID
Kembangan Jakarta ID
Hong Kong
city, province/state
Tai Koo, Eastern District
HK
Tai Koo Eastern District HK
The inferLocation query will only return a single location suitable for posting a job ad, similar to the PositionPosting usage type for locationSuggestions, and will return null if a valid location cannot be inferred from the provided data.Issues typically occur when the location data supplied is too broad or ambiguous, such as the examples below:
formattedAddress
countryCode
postCode
Response
Malaysia
MY
nullLocation is too broad
New South Wales
AU
nullLocation is too broad
Richmond
AU
Richmond QLD 4822 AUPotential for mismatch, for example if user intended Richmond VIC. Including postcode will aid accuracy of results.
If null is returned, the hirer will be unable to proceed to post their job ad to SEEK and you should:
  1. Surface meaningful and actionable error messaging to users within the job posting flow, providing an opportunity to amend the location before retrying. For example: Unable to retrieve location for SEEK. Update your location and ensure you are entering a granular city or suburb.
  2. Review the quality of the address details that your software sends to the SEEK API

location

The location query returns the location for a given location ID. This can be useful for debugging or exploratory testing:
QueryVariablesResult
CopyGraphQL Explorer
query ($id: String!) {
  location(id: $id) {
    name
    contextualName
    countryCode


    # Enable your software to pre-select a salary currency
    currencies {
      code
    }
  }
}
Job posting features: Position profiles
Job posting features: Job categories