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A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Dynamic Job Board using WordPress

Last Updated on February 17th, 2023

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Wondering how to create a job board using WordPress? This detailed guide will be helpful for you.

You are on this page, which implies you must be an entrepreneur willing to disrupt the online job-board or listing industry. No? 

Then, a professional, or a team of professionals, with decades of experience in HR?!

If not these, you should be an enterprise owner with a nice website but no careers section or functionality.

In all the above scenarios, how to create a job board must be your first question.

We would say – Use WordPress.

WordPress provides amazing flexibility for WP job boards or other types of websites. A WP job board website will be highly customizable. This means – many things for your new endeavor are simplified already.

In this article on how to use WordPress to power a job board 2022, we will explain – what a job board is, what capabilities it must-have, which WordPress plugins or themes can be considered for job board creation, and in the end, how to create a job board [step-by-step].

What Are Job Boards?

What Are Job Boards?

Online job boards are, kind of, the directories that list full-time jobs, part-time projects, small gigs, and/or freelance work requirements. But unlike simple listings, these are interactive.

Not clear? Let us simplify it for you. 

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Do you remember that ‘Employment’ section in newspapers or the whole ‘Employment News’? 

Job boards can be considered the virtual and interactive versions of the same.

What purpose does a WordPress job board serve?

Your purpose for building a job board could be:

  • To create a stand-alone job board as your additional source of income;
  • To receive applications for various openings in your company;
  • To attract traffic to your HR, vacancies, or job-listing website;
  • To provide a well-built platform for job or resource hunting to people.

WordPress job boards – Essential Details

In a typical WP job board, there are 2 user roles – Applicant and Employer. 

Employers can post job offers, add job descriptions, and specify their requirements in detail. 

On the other hand, applicants must be able to search through the job board, add details to their profile, and apply to job posts. 

Some job boards also let the employers search through the applicant database and hire people directly from their profiles.

As per your requirements, you may choose to charge money from either employers, or applicants, or from both parties. So, job boards can help you make a good income too.

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How to Create a Job Board Using WordPress in 3 Easy Steps

Though we have prepared a step-by-step guide to create an efficient job board using WordPress, you might also want to learn about the essential elements/modules of it, and what precautions you must take while building it. 

[In case you already know that, scroll down a bit and read our step-by-step guide directly.]

Important Elements of a Job Board Summed Up

Now that you have decided to build a brand-new job board using WordPress, here are the basic elements that your solution must have:

  • Login modules for applicants and employers;
  • Shortcode ability for quick job listing;
  • Job-posting feature for Employers;
  • Jobs feed;
  • Application facility/form for job seekers with options to add details, upload resume/file, and so on;
  • A Dashboard with application history for the applicant;
  • Simple Search capabilities;
  • Payment methods for members (as per your business model);
  • Support.

For an advanced job board, there could be a few additional abilities, such as:

  • Advanced Search and customization filters;
  • Applicant profiles;
  • Option for employers to search for applicants;
  • Customized Job alerts;
  • Resume Manager;
  • Integration of job posts from other portals (e.g. indeed.com)
  • Built-in Resume Creator to let job seekers create a resume(s) as per your specifications;
  • Blog

Expert Tips to Creating a Powerful Job Board using WP

  • Your WordPress Job Board must be intuitive and user-friendly;
  • Membership cost must be reasonable – Add a free trial of a few days;
  • Select the right WordPress theme and collection of suitable WP Plugins for Job Board;
  • Improve its interface and add features time-to-time;
  • It should be well-organized and not-so-serious;
  • Accept feedback from your registered users and implement the worthy ones.

Now that you are acquainted with everything that you must know prior to creating a job board, let’s get started with creating one.

How to Create a Job Board Using WordPress in 3 Easy Steps?

Our step-by-step guide to WordPress job boards is the best online resource to get assistance from. Till now, we have covered pretty much everything that a job board owner must keep in mind. This section emphasizes the functional execution of the same, i.e. on how to create a job board step-by-step. 

Just follow these 3 steps and you’ll be done:

Step 1 – Hosting, Domain, Theme Selection. Configuring the Theme

WP job board needs a space to host it. Also, you need a domain name in order to allow your prospects to search the platform easily. 

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Next, it is also essential to build a custom theme or choose an existing one for creating a job board. In the end, you may add plugins, extensions, and custom settings to make it work as the best WordPress job boards available at present.

The Domain 

Remember to choose an SEO-friendly domain name for your job board so that it could also help you in fetching some traffic. Adding the word(s) related to jobs and/or your target industry will be a good idea.

Hosting 

Think about your expected traffic and performance in mind while choosing your hosting service provider. Make sure that they have a downgrade/upgrade option for your plan. Cost-convenience and reliability should be considered alongside. 

Installing the Theme

Once you opt for a hosting plan and configure WordPress, you must choose a theme for your WordPress job board. JobRoller, Neve, JobMonster, Jobseek, and WorkScout are a few options to consider.

In this tutorial, we will use JobRoller while moving forward. We have selected it because it is:

  • AJAX-enabled;
  • Enabled with JobPosting Schema (for listing in Google Search Engine’s direct job listing);
  • Light-weight and performance-optimized;
  • Intuitive and SEO-optimized;
  • Updated frequently and comes with Captcha settings;
  • Documented properly and has multiple integration add-ons/plugins.

You may purchase JobRoller for yourself for $69, or apply the coupon code ‘WPLIFT’ to it and get a 10% discount on the purchase.

The theme will immediately have a login/registration panel for employers and job-seekers. Later on, you can also have an about us page, a blog, a contact page, menu-items as per job-types you’ll have, resources, job archive, FAQs, a terms & conditions page, etc.

Configuring the Job Board

JobRoller lets you add jobs as well as job types while you configure your job board. By creating taxonomies/job types, you can easily add categories to the job board. The job seekers will be able to filter jobs by job types.

For each of the job types, you may create jobs by clicking on ‘Submit a Job’ (or, Jobs -> ‘Add New’ from WP backend) and filling the detailed job description form.

Besides the above details, you can add the live location, job description, and a short guide for applicants.

To add a ‘terms and conditions’ page or other pages, you can open ‘Pages’, find the relevant page with the desired title, open it, add details, copy its page ID, go to JobRoller settings > Page/Category ID configuration, and paste the ID in the right field (e.g., Terms Page ID, in this case).

Security Settings

In the JobRoller Settings > Security, there will be fields to help you enable Captcha for your website. Adding Google Captcha can keep away spammers and intruders from your site to some extent.

Advertising Settings

For your job listing pages, footer and/or header, you may enable banners or banner ads through the JobRoller settings.

Advanced Settings

You can leave the details in this section as is.

Emails

From here, you may choose when to send emails/alerts to your subscribers, for example – email for new jobs, job-approved email to employer, reminders, new registration email, job expiry notification, and responses to applied jobs in emails (BCCs).

Pricing

Navigate to Payments > Settings. You can setup General (Regional Payment Method), Bank Transfer option, and PayPal. JobRoller even lets you enable taxes too.

Job Packs

Jobroller lets you create job packs, charge a membership fee, or enable fees per job listing. The ‘per listing’ fee option will attract more customers i.e. employers when you are starting up.

Integrations

You can integrate indeed job posts through your publisher ID and channel name in your JobRoller website.

Orders / Transaction Logging 

In the Payment > Orders section, you can directly track your sales – without entering into your bank account or logging into PayPal.

Resumes

Allow your job seekers to create, manage and improve their resumes. They can also add their resumes to your applicant lists by categories, specialties, and type.

Jobs Menu / My Dashboard [for employers]

View all jobs and view their status from your dashboard at once. Changing their type, status, category, details, and more is possible from here itself.

Step 2 – Adding Plugins/Add-ons as Required

We explained using a full-fledged WordPress theme for building a WordPress job board in the previous step. To create a job board website that is the best, you might still need a few good plugins or extensions.

Alternatively, if you want the job board with basic functionalities or for your existing site (instead of a complete job board site), using a job board plugin will be a better idea.

Thinking of the above, WP Job Manager Plugin is the option that first came to our mind. It is one wholesome plugin and as per your needs, its feature list can always be extended.

This plugin will let you create jobs, receive applications, use the shortcodes on different pages, create paid/free job listings, and more. It will work for your multiple authors, so creating jobs from different employer account is also possible through it.

To create a job board with a lot of features on your existing website, you may add premium add-ons, like resume manager, job alerts, application deadline, or more. There is a good list of themes and WP-related products, with which, the WP Job Manager Plugin is compatible.

Besides or instead of this, you may search for other job board plugins and use the one(s) that fits your needs.

Step 3 – Enabling more extensions and ensuring quality data in-flow

WordPress job boards require a significant amount of work when it comes to making them a success. As you have configured the right theme and/or plugin(s), your WordPress job board must now be filled with user data.

So, now is the time to create a job board website launch strategy, choose tactics to add employers/job-seekers to it, improve its search engine ranking, and attain a high sales rate for your listings. That’s your part. Good luck ☺

Wrapping It Up

Learning how to create a job board using WordPress could save you a decent amount of money and improve the quality of the solution you will be launching. For this, we listed the WP aids, tips, feature-list, and other essentials in this article. So, we hope our guide to WP job board building has helped you in this regard.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do job boards make money?

Job boards with a large job-seeker and employer base can earn money. WP job boards can enable membership fee, the fee per successful hire for employers, advertisements, consulting services for job-seekers, assistance for employers at a certain cost, premium access to a customized profile listing, and/or other functionalities to earn money.

What is the downside of using job boards?

While you can create a job board feature-rich job board and expect the best, it still may have a few downsides. For example, it is possible that your return on investment remains low, as the job board couldn’t reach the right audience and have a rich user base as you’d expected. Also, some job boards may result in a bad user experience due to a lot of unnecessary applications to trouble the employers, or a lot of low-amount or fake jobs to trouble the job-seekers.

How do you create a job board?

WordPress can be used for creating pretty-much all kinds of websites. So, you can opt for it. While creating your WordPress job board, you will need a domain, a hosting service provider plan, a few Job Board related WordPress plugins, or a reliable WordPress job boards theme. Besides these, you will have to put a few efforts into customizing the website as per your needs.

How do I create a job listing for my website?

To create a job board website listing, you must have employers on your website who post vacancies/jobs. Otherwise, you should have your own/clients’ requirements that you could post on the job board. This data should be rendered as per the job seeker’s profile, its previous searches, and current search query (as and when needed) to create an engaging & impactful job listing for your website.

A team of WordPress experts that love to test out new WordPress related software, WordPress plugins and WordPress themes.