How to Turn WordPress into a Job Posting Site

In this article, you will see how WordPress is turned into an online job-posting website with just a few simple tweaks. To do this, you need to install a free plugin called WP Job Manager. WP Job Manager is a lightweight plugin designed for allowing anyone to add a job-board to their WordPress website. Being shortcode based, it can work with any theme (given a bit of CSS styling) and honestly, it is really simple to set up.

Once installed you get the ability to add, manage and categorize job listings inside the WordPress admin area. The job listings is inserted into your posts and pages using shortcodes and they will be searchable & filterable using Ajax.

You also get front-end forms allowing employers to login, submit and manage job listings. They even get a cool live preview function to help them check the listing before it goes live. Job posters can add email address and website to allow candidates to contact them and apply.

You can get this plugin for free at the WordPress codex, or search for it under the plugins section of your WordPress admin. If you need features not found in the basic package, you can find some premium add-on’s for the plugin here. This includes a paid listing function making it possible for the site owner to make money through the job board. We also recently reviewed some job posting themes and if you have plans for starting a website in this niche I think you should check out Jobify andJobRoller.

Installing and setting up WP Jom Manager

Plugin installation is fairly simple, you can download it here and use FTP, however, I suggest youjust install from the WordPress New Plugin search function.

WP Job Manager adds a new entry to the WordPress Admin after installation.

Job post that are currently active can be seen at the All Job Listings entry. You can choose to view, edit or delete the job post from here. It also shows the current status of the job post.

Monitor the status of your job post.

The Add New menu entry allows you to submit new job listings from inside the admin area. Just fill in the basic info about your job vacancy and post it. You can also preview it before posting.

WP Job Manager adds a Job Types function to categorize job posts and make it convenient for jobseekers to look for a job listing in the database. This works just as categories for WordPress posts. You can add a new job type by navigating to Job Listings > Job Types. It works similar to the default WordPress category function.

Managing Job Types

The plugin admin settings can be configured under Job Listings > Settings. The Job Listings tab allows you to set the default number of jobs to be posted on a page, hide/unhide filled jobs and enabling/disabling of job categories.

The Job Submission tab menu includes the option to control the jobs posted by website members. You can set to either auto approve or wait for an approval for a job post, set listing duration before being deleted from the database and account creation for job posters.

Setting up the plugin front-end

The plugin make use of shortcodes and this makes it simple for you to add the functionality where you need it. You can see the full shortcode reference here including all the arguments.

[jobs] – This shortcode shows the job archive which is a list of the jobs on your site. (example [jobs per_page="20" orderby="title" show_categories=false])
[job] – Outputs a single job by ID
[job_summary] – Outputs a single job’s summary by ID (example [job_summary id="10"])
[submit_job_form] – This shortcode outputs the submit job form.
[job_dashboard] This shortcode outputs the job dashboard used by logged in users.

The Submit Job form used by employers is created by inserting the shortcode [submit_job_form] on a WordPress page. Registered users can then use the submit job form to post their vacancy.

Adding a job form using shortcode

Submit Job form

A quick preview before submitting job post.

Single Job listing – how it likkes once published.

In order to list the available jobs you use the [jobs] shortcode.

Job Types used as a search filter.

WP Job Manager is an excellent job submission plugin and it is free to use. The plugin instantly turns your WordPress site into a user friendly, job posting website. It includes all the necessary features to easily manage and customize your job post without having much coding knowledge. Unfortunately some featured are not free and need to be purchased as addons, however, the basic package is great and will do the job in most cases.  There are also free addons available that I recommend you check out ex. Company Profiles and Job Colors

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The above article was originally published by TripWire Magazine and can be seen here.