# When not to use BetterJobs

> When is BetterJobs the wrong tool for the job?

Source: https://docs.betterjobs.cc/resources/when-not-to-use/

BetterJobs does one thing: it finds job postings across many providers and returns each real opening once. If your problem is something else, another tool will serve you better. Here are the cases we know about.

## You need contact data for people

BetterJobs returns jobs and company hiring profiles. A [canonical job](https://docs.betterjobs.cc/data/jobs.md) has no person fields: no hiring manager name, email or phone.

**Use instead:** a contact-data waterfall. Feed it the company domain from `company.domain` and the role you want to reach. Use BetterJobs to find *which* companies to contact and *why now*, and the contact tool to find *who*.

> Note
>
> Some partner providers sell person data of their own. Per SignalsAPI docs, SignalsAPI returns the hiring owner’s verified work email. BetterJobs does not pass person data through.

## You need many years of job history

BetterJobs is built for current and recent hiring. `posted_within_days` goes up to 365. Of the partner providers, the longest history any of them claims starts in 2020: per Coresignal docs, postings since August 2020, and per Techmap, 451M+ postings since 2020. Nobody in the waterfall covers ten years.

**Use instead:** a labor-market data vendor that sells long historical series. If 2020 onward is enough and you need it in bulk, buy the dataset from Coresignal or Techmap directly (see below).

## You already pay for the one provider you need

If one provider’s coverage is enough for you and you already have a contract, BetterJobs adds a layer between you and data you already own. The value of BetterJobs is the merge: more sources, one schema, duplicates removed, one bill. With one source, there is nothing to merge.

**Use instead:** that provider’s API directly. Our [migration guides](https://docs.betterjobs.cc/guides/migrate-from-theirstack.md) map field names both ways, so you can compare later.

> Want both?
>
> On the Scale plan you can bring your own provider keys. BetterJobs then uses your existing contract inside the waterfall. See [Credits and billing](https://docs.betterjobs.cc/concepts/credits-and-billing.md).

## You need full datasets delivered to your warehouse

BetterJobs is an API. An async search returns up to 10,000 jobs per search, paged at 100. It does not drop files into your bucket.

**Use instead:** a bulk feed from a provider. Per Coresignal docs, Coresignal delivers JSONL, Parquet or CSV to S3, GCS, Azure or Snowflake. Per Techmap, Techmap offers daily country feeds via AWS Data Exchange.

## You need technographics or firmographics

BetterJobs answers “who is hiring for what”. It does not return a company’s tech stack, size, funding or revenue.

**Use instead:** a company-data provider. Per TheirStack docs, TheirStack sells technographics inferred from job text plus firmographics. Join on the company domain.

## You need to resell job data

Each job carries a `license`. `license.resale: false` means you may not resell or redistribute that job as data. Check it before you build a product on top. See [Licensing](https://docs.betterjobs.cc/concepts/licensing.md).

## You need GA guarantees today

The API is a **v1 preview**. Endpoints and fields may change before general availability. Uptime, coverage and freshness figures are published at GA. If you need a contractual SLA now, wait for GA or talk to us about Enterprise terms.

## Still a fit?

If you need current job postings from many sources, merged, with one key and one bill, start with the [Quickstart](https://docs.betterjobs.cc/getting-started/quickstart.md). The keyless sandbox costs nothing.