Build a free WordPress job board with WP Career Board

An employer registers, builds a company profile and posts a job from the job form. They see their jobs and the applications on them in an employer dashboard, and they can move applicants through the application list and board. In the free plugin the stages are fixed; custom hiring stages on the board are a Pro feature.

A candidate searches and filters the listings, opens a role and applies. Because BuddyNext is part of the install, the candidate also has a profile, and the employer has a presence in the feed. A job board without that is a list of links people visit once. With it, there is a reason to come back between searches: to follow a company, to ask a question, to see who else is active.

Resumes and resume search are Pro, as are job alerts. If you want employers to search candidates, or want candidates to get an email when a matching job is posted, that is the upgrade to plan for.

Post three jobs with different types and locations and test every filter. Search for something that does not exist and read the empty result; make sure it tells the user what to try next. Apply as a candidate and confirm the employer sees the application, then confirm the candidate sees something that tells them it went through.

Look at the company profile page as a candidate would. It is often the page that decides whether someone applies, so it should answer what the company does and where it is. Look at everything again at phone width, because job seekers search on phones.

Decide how you will handle bad listings. Write a short posting policy, tell employers what you will remove and say where they can reach you. A job board loses candidates quickly when even one scam gets through.

The most common next step is money. WP Career Board Pro adds credits, which is how paid listings work, along with resumes, job alerts, maps, multi-board, custom fields, AI, a job feed and analytics. Turn paid listings on only once the board has traffic worth paying for.

For the community side, Eventonomy suits hiring days and webinars with RSVPs. MediaVerse lets employers show their workplace in photos and video, and it switches on direct messages. WB Gamification can recognise active members with points and badges. The plugins page shows what each one does and what is free.

All of these use the same WordPress accounts as the board, so employers and candidates do not register twice.

This build suits a niche board run by an association, a training provider, a recruiter with a specialism or a community that already has members who hire each other. The profile and feed layer matters most where the audience is a defined group.

If your board already runs on WP Job Manager, follow the WP Job Manager build guide instead and keep your data. If you are listing businesses and places rather than roles, the directory build is the better match. If you are placing freelancers on projects, look at the services marketplace build, which has requests, proposals and milestones built in.

Check new listings and applications daily at first. Remove anything that breaks your posting policy, and write back to employers whose listings are unclear; a good listing gets better applicants. Look at the application board for jobs that have applicants nobody has moved forward, and nudge the employer.

Once a week, post to the feed: a featured employer, a useful article, an answered question. Keep the career advice space active by answering the first few questions yourself. After that members start answering each other.

The theme cost does not depend on how many jobs or members you have. Reign is a flat licence with no per-member fee and no share of your sales. See the pricing page for the plugin plans, and the hosting page if you want to plan for traffic.

The first is launching with no jobs. Candidates who find an empty list never return, and employers will not pay to post on a board with no visitors. Line up real roles before you announce anything, and approach the first employers by hand.

The second is a vague niche. A board for every job everywhere competes with the biggest sites. A board for one profession, region or community has a reason to exist, and its employers know the audience is theirs. Say who the board is for on the first screen.

The third is ignoring the candidate side. Applications are only half the job. A candidate who gets no reply stops applying, and then employers stop posting. Encourage employers to respond, show candidates where their application stands, and use the community feed to keep both sides engaged. Finally, take down filled and expired roles quickly. A board full of closed jobs teaches visitors that it is not worth checking.