How to Build a Job Board Website With WordPress (In 4 Steps)

Have you ever wanted to create your own job board website with WordPress? We'll show you how in four easy steps.

Job board websites are a popular resource for those looking for work. Starting your own platform for job hunters with WordPress can therefore be a profitable venture. However, you may feel intimidated by the scope of such a project.

Fortunately, the process can be simple. You can have open listings up in no time by following a few steps focusing on the most important parts of a job board site.

In this article, we'll cover some of the reasons why you might want to build your own job board website with WordPress. Then, we'll go over four steps to help you get started. Let's dive right in!

Why you may want to build a job board website

A virtual job board is a site that connects employers to prospective candidates. However, instead of only posting openings for one company, these sites can centralize the search in one place. This helps job seekers apply to multiple opportunities more easily.

There are around 9.7 million Americans who are currently unemployed. Many of these individuals are likely looking for work. Now might be a smart time to create a job board website.

Doing so can help you connect job seekers with gainful employment. You might also be able to monetize your platform.

There are many job board niches you might choose to specialize in, too. You can focus your postings on a specific industry or region. Or, you could tailor listings to your audiences, such as freelancers or those seeking part-time work.

If you're not interested in building an entire site dedicated to employment opportunities, you also have other options. For example, you could try installing a classifieds plugin on your existing WordPress website. This can add job listing functionality to your website without necessarily shifting its entire focus.

How to build a job board website with WordPress (in 4 steps)

Below, we've explained how you can build a dedicated online job board. Before diving in, make sure you have built a WordPress website.

For this walkthrough, we'll be using Formidable Forms. You'll need a premium option with PayPal installed to follow the steps below.

Step 1: Create a form to collect job listings

First, you'll need a way to collect listings for open positions from employers. One way to go about this is to create a job posting form.

To do so, navigate to Formidable → Forms → Add New:

This will open a window asking what type of form you'd like to create. You can choose a template or build your listing submission form from scratch. We'll be doing the latter.

Your form should include a few key fields such as job title, the employer's name, position salary, description, and required time commitment. We recommend that you make these details required for users to submit the form.

You can add as many or as few fields as you'd like. Simply click on the one you want to add, drag it over to the place in the form where you want it to appear, and edit the details in the Field Options tab:

You may also want to take advantage of more features. For example, adding star ratings can help job seekers identify the most responsive employers.

In the example above, we added a field for the poster's email and name. This will enable you to create WordPress accounts for users who fill out your form. To do so, navigate to your admin bar and select New → User.

You can manually add the poster's information to a corresponding account on the registration screen. Consider using our WordPress User Registration add-on if you want to take a more automatic route.

Step 2: Add support for PayPal to your listing submission form

The most common way to monetize a job board website is to charge employers a fee to share their openings on your platform. To accomplish this, you can add PayPal support to your form to collect payments. You could even encourage postings by offering affiliate commissions.

In the Formidable Forms editor, navigate to Settings → Actions & Notifications → PayPal:

Fill in the required fields. Once you're done, click on Update to save your changes. Employers can enter their PayPal details to pay your fee and post their listings.

Step 3: Customize your job listing display

Once you've set up your form, you can adjust how listings will appear to visitors on your job board website. There are a few methods you can use to do this. For example, if you want to display listings in a table, find your listing submission form's shortcode under Settings → General:

Take note of it, then go to the page where you want to display your listings. Paste your shortcode into the editor, replacing formidable with formresults.

This will display the information employers have submitted to your site via your listing form. If you preview the page, you'll see something similar to this:

However, if you'd like more control over how your listings appear, you can use our WordPress application builder to create completely customized layouts. Just go to Formidable → Views and click Add New:

On the next screen, choose Grid View, then select the name of your listing submission form under Use Entries from Form.

Click Start adding content, then build your job manager using the fields available on the right side of the editor:

Relevant information will be pulled from your listing submission form to build your job board display. Once you're finished editing the listing page, you can switch to the Detail Page tab and repeat the process.

Keep in mind that this second page is what job hunters will see when they click through from an individual posting on your listing page. So, the information you add here will only apply to an individual open position and should include more information than your listing page. This will help users to decide if they want to apply for the position.

Step 4: Enable job hunters to submit applications through your site

If you've followed the previous steps, you already have a basic WordPress job board website. However, you can also do more with Formidable's features.

For example, you can enable job hunters to submit applications directly from your website and automatically email the information to the relevant job poster. This can make your site easier and more enjoyable for people to use.

You'll first need to create a new form using the Job Application template to let users submit applications. You can use most of this pre-built layout as-is.

However, to connect applications to the correct postings, you'll need to add a Dynamic dropdown field to your Job Application form:

In the Field Options for this field, select Load Options → From Form Entries. Choose the title of your listing submission form from the next menu and Job Title as the field. This will enable applicants to choose the position they're interested in when filling out their applications.

You'll also need to add [get param=entry] under Default Value.

Next, head over to the Settings tab in the form builder and select Actions & Notifications → Send Email → Email Notification. Here you can specify all the information needed to send employers notifications of new applications:

First, click on the To field. This will bring up a menu of fields pulled from your existing forms. Select the ID for Email associated with the job poster. Under Reply to, select the email associated with the applicant. This will enable the two parties to communicate directly.

Additionally, you can customize the Subject and Message fields if you like. After you've saved your work, you can add this form to the detail page you created in Forms → Views or any other part of your site.

There are other ways to enhance your job manager page and job board website as well. For example, you might choose to create a searchable database for all archived jobs. Features such as this can enable visitors to look up positions they applied to in the past.

Conclusion

With so many individuals currently seeking work, creating a job board website can be a profitable way to make money online. Fortunately, doing so can be simple with WordPress and Formidable Forms.

In this article, we covered four steps to get a basic job posting site set up:

1. Create a form to collect job listings from employers.
2. Add support for PayPal to your listing submission form.
3. Customize your job listing display.
4. Enable job hunters to submit applications through your site.

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