How to create a job board in WordPress with the WP Job Manager plugin

Nowadays, most job seekers search for advertised positions online. This means that digital job boards are essential to the recruitment process. Companies must therefore decide whether to use third-party job portals such as Indeed, Stepstone and others or create their own job board. Said Habou Adi shows you today how to create your own job board with WordPress.

Fortunately, anyone can set up a job page on their own website or create entire job boards with WordPress. In this article, I'll cover the benefits and features of job websites and show you how to create a job website yourself using WordPress.

Your own job board with WordPress - the advantages

Digital job boards bring you as an employer together with your potential applicants and make the recruitment process easier. Whether you want to create a job board on your WordPress website or a separate platform for job postings, here are the benefits you get as an employer:

• You save the fees for third-party job boards.
• You give interested parties the opportunity to submit their applications immediately.
• You will receive structured information about the applicants.
• You don't have to deal with the terms and conditions and privacy policies of third-party providers.
• Your inbox won't be flooded with tons of emails from third-party providers.
• You can put more energy into analyzing applications than into posting ads on external job boards.

As a developer or web designer, you can also benefit from having your own WordPress job board. Small and medium-sized companies usually post their job ads on several portals and are more willing to test smaller job boards. As a web designer, setting up such a job portal yourself with WordPress has several advantages, such as

• Building your own brand
• Development of a fully functional web-based application
• Improve your WordPress skills
• Supporting employers and applicants in their search
• Building a network
• Monetization of your job page through the sale of advertising space or "Pay Per Click" advertising

WordPress-based job boards offer you many advantages, as described in this section. However, they require some specific features to work well. So let's jump right in and understand the basic functions of job websites.

Features of job board websites

To bring employers together with job seekers, job boards use some specific features. You should know these functionalities if you want to create a career page for your company or build your own job board to hire new employees - or to create a source of income.

Here are the most important functions that job sites should have:

• Search and filter functions: With these two functions, interested parties can easily search for vacancies that match their skills by filtering by category, type of job, keywords and location, for example.
  
• Responsive design: Many people use their smartphones to search for jobs online. A responsive design prevents potential applicants from dropping out due to poor usability.
  
• Front-end submissions: These enable companies to post job advertisements and applicants to apply and submit their documents. This saves time for all parties and simplifies the entire process.
  
• User profiles: A good job board allows the creation of accounts for both companies and applicants. Employers can use it to track their offers and manage the applications they receive. Interested parties can enter their details, upload their CV and track the status of their application. 

Job Board on website integrate with WP Job Manager

One of the most common ways for companies to set up their own job board is by adding it to their careers site or creating a landing page where jobs are displayed. Even though there are several WordPress plugins that make this possible, I will only focus on WP Job Manager, as the plugin is very well-known and user-friendly. In the following, I will explain step by step how to create a job board with WP Job Manager.

Installation of WP Job Manager

First of all, you need to install the WP Job Manager plugin to be able to publish vacancies on your WordPress website. How to install WP Job Manager:

1. Go to Plugins > Install
2. Search for WP Job Manager in the WordPress plugin repository (in the search field "Search plugins ...")
3. Install WP Job Manager
4. Activate the plugin
5. Deactivate Usage Tracking if you do not want WP Job Manager to collect data.

Setting up WP Job Manager

Now you can follow the setup wizard of the plugin:

1. Click on the "Start setup wizard" button
2. Then click on "Start setup"
3. Deactivate settings "Create job" and "Job Dashboard".
4. Activate "Jobs". This allows your users to see the subsequent job list on an automatically generated overview of your jobs. In addition to the list of jobs, this job page also contains a search field and various filter functions.

Add a link to the job page to the navigation menu

A good website should offer its visitors a user-friendly design. That's why I recommend linking to your job page in the navigation menu. The following steps are necessary for this:

1. In your WordPress backend, go to Design > Menus.
2. Select which menu you would like to edit from the dropdown.
3. Select "Jobs" in the "Add menu items" area.
4. Drag the menu elements into the desired order.
5. Then save your menu.

Add job ad via the Admin Dashboard

The following steps are required to post a job vacancy via the WordPress Admin Dashboard:

1. In the WordPress dashboard (as shown in the screenshot above), go to Job offers > Add new.
2. A job advertisement template will now open (see screenshot below).
3. First enter the title of the advertised position under "Position".
4. Then fill in the other fields with the most important information.
5. If available, include a link to a company video to make the ad even more appealing.
6. Then click on "Publish". That's it, jobseekers can now view vacancies directly on your website or apply for the advertisements.

How to create your own job portal with WordPress

Are you not only interested in displaying open positions on your existing company website, but also want to create your own job portal? I'll show you how to do this below.

Installation of a job board theme

A WordPress theme is what makes WordPress great. It offers you website templates whose functionalities can be extended with plugins and add-ons. The WordPress theme I'm going to use here is JobScout. Follow these instructions to install it:

1. Go to Design > Themes > Add theme.
2. Search for JobScout in the theme repository.
3. Go to "Install".
4. Click on "Activate".

Install WP Job Manager plugin

Once you have installed the JobScout theme, install the WP Job Manager plugin as described above in the article under "Installation of WP Job Manager".

Set up WP Job Manager

Now you can follow the setup wizard of the plugin:

1. Click on the "Start setup wizard" button
2. Then click on "Start setup"
3. Activate the following settings:
   - Job: Allows your users to view the job list on your automatically created job overview.
   - Job Dashboard: Creates a page that allows employers to manage their job ads directly from the website instead of from the WordPress backend. If you want to manage all job ads only from the WordPress admin dashboard, you can disable this setting.
   - Post a job: Creates a page that allows employers to post ads directly from the website, instead of from the WordPress backend. If this should only be possible via the WordPress Admin Dashboard, deactivate this function.

Once you have installed the theme and set up the plugin, you will need add-ons to create a fully functional job portal. In the next section, I have compiled a list of the most important add-ons that will make your job portal website fully functional.

WP Job Manager plugin: The most important add-ons

Add-ons are paid additional functions that improve the functionality of plugins. Below you will find a list of the most important add-ons for the WP Job Manager plugin:

• Applications: With this function, applicants can apply for jobs via a form and companies can view and manage the applications received via their job dashboard.
  
• Simple Paid Listings: Add this feature for paid listings. Simply set a price per listing and take payment via Stripe or PayPal before the listing is published.
  
• WC Paid Listings: This WP Job Manager add-on allows you to set up custom job packages with WooCommerce for paid listings.
  
• Resume Manager: With the Resume Manager, you can integrate forms for submitting CVs and CV lists on your website. These can then be managed in the WordPress dashboard.
  
• Job Alerts: With this add-on, registered users can save their job searches and create alerts that send new jobs by e-mail on a daily or weekly basis, for example.

Conclusion

In a world where digital jobs and remote work are on the rise, job boards will play an increasingly important role in the hiring process and the digital economy. In this article, I hope I was able to give you an understanding of how you can create your own job board in WordPress or set up an application form on your own website to attract new talent. If you have any further questions or input on setting up job sites or the functions of job board plugins, I'd love to hear from you in the comments.