A job board allows people to look for jobs and also lets companies post their job listings. It is a popular online business idea because site owners can make money by accepting payments for job listings.
Over the last 16 years, we’ve helped thousands of users get started with WordPress and set up job boards. We will walk you through the process, including everything from helping you pick the best hosting for your site and selecting a powerful plugin to create job boards.
In this article, we will show you how to easily create a job board in WordPress and make money from it.
Getting Started With Your Job Board Website in WordPress
You will need the following items to create a job board website with WordPress:
- A domain name (This will be your website’s address, like wpbeginner.com)
- A web hosting account (This is where all your website files will be stored)
- A job board extension for WordPress
- Paid job listings add-on (if you want to accept payments for job listings)
Let’s start with the domain name and web hosting account.
Domain names cost around $14.99 per year, and web hosting plans start from $7.99 / month (usually paid annually).
This may sound like a lot of money if you are just starting out.
Luckily, the folks at Bluehost are offering WPBeginner users a free domain name, a free SSL certificate, and a huge discount on hosting.
You can get started for $1.99 per month.
Bluehost is one of the biggest hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.
Once you purchase hosting, Bluehost will automatically install WordPress for you. If you need instructions, then follow our guide on how to install WordPress for detailed step-by-step instructions.
Now that you have WordPress ready, let’s see how to start a job board website.
Setting Up a Job Board in WordPress
The easiest way to add a job board to your WordPress site is by using the WP Job Manager plugin. It is a free WordPress plugin that helps you create job listings, easily manage them, and allow front-end submissions.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Job Manager plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you will need to head to Job Manager » Settings from the WordPress dashboard. From here, you can click the ‘Run Setup Wizard’ button at the top.
This will launch a wizard that you can use to automatically add different pages for your job board site.
On the next screen, go ahead and click the ‘Start setup’ button.
After that, you can select which pages to create. The plugin will create a job submission page, a job dashboard, and a job listing page.
Next, you will need to click the ‘Create selected pages’ button.
The plugin will now automatically create these pages using shortcodes. It helps save time as you don’t have to add new pages to your job board website individually.
Now that you have created all the required pages, let’s move on to the plugin’s settings.
Simply head over to the Job Manager » Settings page and click on the ‘Pages’ tab.
From here, you need to ensure that the pages you have created earlier are correctly tagged. You can also select them from the dropdown menu.
After that, you need to review other settings on the page. Let’s start with the ‘General’ tab first.
On the general page, you can select the date format, add a Google Maps API key to display locations and maps for job listings, or delete data when you uninstall the plugin.
Note: Google Maps API key requires you to provide billing information, and you will be charged based on your usage. If you don’t want to use Google Maps API, then you can leave this option empty.
After that, you can switch to the ‘Job Listings’ tab. This page offers several options to control the display and features available for job listings.
You need to review and adjust them to your own requirements. For instance, you can change the number of listings per page and hide expired listings.
Similarly, you can control the job listing submissions by switching to the ‘Job Submission’ tab.
From here, you can control new account settings, submission moderation, edit controls, and more.
To protect your website against automated spam, you need to switch to the ‘CAPTCHA‘ tab.
From here, you’ll need to select the reCAPTCHA version and enter the site and secret key.
If you scroll down, then you’ll see the Job Submission Form option.
Don’t forget to check the box next to the ‘Job Submission Form’ option to display the CAPTCHA field on the job submission form.
WP Job Manager also sends notifications to site administrators and users.
You can control them in the ‘Email Notifications’ tab.
Bonus tip: We recommend using the WP Mail SMTP plugin to fix the common WordPress not sending email issue.
Once you are done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.
Adding New Job Listings
Depending on your settings, logged-in users can now submit jobs directly from the Submit Jobs page you created earlier.
As an administrator, you can also directly add jobs from the WordPress admin area.
Simply go to the Job Manager » Job Listing page and click the ‘Add New’ button.
Next, you can provide a title and description for the job listing you are adding.
The panel on the right also offers an option to select the type of job, such as freelance, full-time, part-time, and more.
After entering the title and description and choosing a job type, you need to scroll down to the ‘Job Listing Data’ section.
Here, you can provide more information about the job, such as the location, application email or URL, company information, company logo, and job listing expiration date.
After filling in the job listing data, you can preview the job by clicking on the preview button.
Next, you can either add more details if necessary or simply click on the ‘Publish’ button to post the listing.
To manage existing job listings, you need to go to the Job Manager » Job Listings page in the WordPress admin area.
There, you will be able to see all the job listings posted on your job board.
Your website visitors will be able to view all job listings by visiting the jobs page you created earlier.
It will look like this.
WP Job Manager also offers premium extensions that you can use for different purposes.
For example, you may have seen several reputable sites adding a job board to generate extra revenue from their website. If your blog has a good reputation among industry peers, then companies wouldn’t mind paying a small fee to get their job posting listed on your site. To enable this feature, you can use the Simple Paid Listings extension.
Similarly, there are other extensions for managing resumes, getting job alerts, bookmarking jobs, adding application deadlines, and more.
We hope this article helped you easily create a job board in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to build an Amazon affiliate store using WordPress and how to make money blogging with WordPress.
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Dennis Muthomi
I’ve made 3 job boards using this exact method, and the paid listings feature has been particularly valuable.
For one of my clients, we started with free listings but transitioned to a tiered pricing model ($29 basic, $49 featured) after three months. This generated an additional $1,200/month in revenue.
Pro tip: Consider offering a first-month discount to early adopters – it helps build initial momentum and provides social proof through active listings. The WP Job Manager plugin’s flexibility makes this easy to implement.
Mrteesurez
Thanks for this guide. I see that WordPress is really capable of this, but which type of hosting do you suggest for this type of website ? can one use shared hosting ?
WPBeginner Support
for most sites unless you have a guaranteed large audience it is normally a good idea to start with shared hosting and as your needs increase you can change plans.
Admin
Mrteesurez
Happy to hear this as I am planning to add job section to my site to boost more engagement and loyalty in users. Thanks for your answer.
THANKGOD JONATHAN
Will I be able to creat a portal like upwork if I follow this tutorial? or there are some other things to do in order to make such a complex job portal like upwork?
I have tried asking in quora but I was not given any satisfied answer to my Q.
WPBeginner Support
For what you are wanting we would recommend taking a look at our other article below:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-create-a-micro-job-website-like-fiverr-with-wordpress/
Admin
Petals
Hello,
Your tutorials are very helpful,
However jobs have been added using WP but are not visible on the jobs page on a website. Please can you help? – Thanks
WPBeginner Support
You would want to ensure you set the correct page for the jobs page and if they are still not appearing you would want to reach out to the plugin’s support for them to assist you.
Admin
Mayank A
Good article!
Sir, is it possible that admin can Edit Update Delete View database of companies posted ad and also candidates responding to the job ads posted by Corporate members ?
WPBeginner Support
Yes, you can view and edit jobs posted on your site, depending on the specifics you are looking to do the plugin has extensive documentation for how to modify these
Admin
David
If i register for domain name and fix up my site, will i be able to get the full functionalities and plugin in the word press website?
WPBeginner Support
From your comment, it sounds like you’re currently on WordPress.com, in which case you would want to take a look at our article here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/self-hosted-wordpress-org-vs-free-wordpress-com-infograph/
Admin
Kerry
I would like to know if there is a plug-in to import jobs from other sites?
WPBeginner Support
While we don’t have a recommendation at the moment, if you are using a job board plugin if you reach out to the plugin’s support they may have a recommended method.
Admin
Christopher Haswell
Hey guys,
Great plugin and the [jobs] post/page works perfectly, however the other two pages don’t work with the short code. should I be doing anything else or purchasing anything to make these work?
Also since installing it seems to have messed up my ‘edge’ accordion which was working perfectly before?
Any suggestions gratefully recieved.
Thank you
Rahul
Hi, Everything is fine but jobs are not visible on the jobs page. I’m not keeping signin mandatory.
Traci Wilson
Is there a way to backfill or import jobs for a freelancer site?
Harshal
I want to creat job site for back office & Voice and technical process.
Vishnu
Hi,
This plugin is working fine that our exact requirement.. but we expect another one requirement that is “the normal user can’t able to apply any jobs form site using this plugin”
it is says that “You need to be signed in to manage your listings. Sign in”.. Every users dont know that login details..
So you please advise me. how to customize it..
Thanks
ankit
plz tell me ….. in this plugin i want its search box at diffrent place …… what can i do for this thing
…..
amanda
How do I use the short codes? Cuz I can’t get them to work,please someone email and let me know. Thanks
amanda
I enter these shortcodes like jobs,job_dashboardsubmit_job_form,etc. They don’t work,can someone please help out . Thank you
Rodney
Hi Amanda,
All you have to do is create a new page/post and insert each shortcode and hit publish.
In this tutorial, you’ll need to create three (3) pages/posts for ( [jobs] , [job_dashboard], and [submit_job_form] ). One page for each shortcode.
Hope it helps you.
Thanks,
Rod
McGhori
Sir, Your are great. I have no words for your thanks. This site is amazing.
Kim Gaynor
I’d love to be able to do the same sort of thing, using a plug-in, but for house plans, not jobs. If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know. Thanks!
MALIK HAMZA
Hello Please Teach me how to solve this problem
Table ‘./blueseal_catdb/pt3_guest_log’ is marked as crashed and should be repaired
please tell me need help urgent
adolf witzeling
Great tutorial-very well explained. Thanks for sharing.
subbareddy
wordpress is amazing there are so many Plugins like this that we can build websites with out knowing html css or any other programming launguage .I have a little bit introusction with buddy press.it is also amazing hope i can expect a good article from you editorial staff about buddy press
Thanks