After 15 years of building niche job boards and working with WordPress, I‘ve seen the job board market evolve tremendously.
The options available now for launching a professional job site using WordPress are outstanding even for non-coders. You can get a fully-featured job board up in no time.
In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll share my experience and expertise to help you find the perfect job board plugin or theme for your needs.
Contents
Why Create a Job Board?
Before jumping into the options, let‘s discuss why you should consider building a job board:
-
Profitability – You can generate revenue through paid job listings, premium employer accounts, featured posts, banner ads and more. Some niche job boards earn 6 figures per year.
-
Usefulness – A focused job board in your field provides real value to employers and candidates. You‘re connecting talent with opportunity.
-
Authority – Operating a successful job board builds your brand‘s credibility and trust in your industry.
-
Traffic – A job board attracts targeted organic visitors and leads to your website.
According to ZipRecruiter, the number of job boards has increased over 60% in the past decade to more than 40,000 globally. But there‘s still lots of room in niche spaces.
With the right strategy, creating a job board with WordPress can be extremely rewarding both financially and in establishing authority. Now let‘s explore some top options for plugins and themes.
Top WordPress Job Board Plugins Compared
1. WP Job Manager (Free)
WP Job Manager is a free WordPress plugin created by Automattic, the same company behind WordPress.com. It‘s arguably the most popular and user-friendly job board plugin available.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Free and easy to use | Limited features and customization |
| Lightweight and fast | Must pay for advanced add-ons |
| 1+ million installs | Some support issues reported |
WP Job Manager allows you to easily:
- Create job submission forms
- Manage listings in a dashboard
- Display jobs through shortcodes
- Accept applications and resumes
It‘s a great choice for launching a basic job board for free. You can be up and running within minutes with WPJM.
While it lacks some powerful functionality of paid alternatives, the free plugin still provides ample tools for a functioning job portal. And it receives relatively frequent updates.
There are also premium add-ons available:
- Paid Listings – Accept payments for job listings
- Application Manager – Collect and review job applications
- Resume Manager – Allow candidates to post resumes to be searched
- Advanced Filters – Additional filtering for search
- Job Alerts – Allow jobseekers to save search alerts
The add-ons provide the extended features you would expect in a paid job board.
Overall, WP Job Manager is likely the fastest, easiest option to launch a basic WordPress job site for free. It‘s a great starting point, with the ability to expand functionality over time through premium add-ons.
2. SeedProd (Paid)
SeedProd is a popular WordPress landing page and website builder plugin. It makes it easy to create beautiful, modern web pages and templates for your job board without any coding.
SeedProd starts at $19/month but offers tons of flexibility for crafting a fully custom job site.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Intuitive drag and drop builder | Steeper learning curve than job board specific plugins |
| 100+ professional templates | Must build more components like forms from scratch |
| Easy customization | No built-in applicant tracking system |
| No coding required | Premium pricing may turn off some |
With SeedProd you can quickly:
- Select a template and edit it
- Customize colors, fonts, layouts
- Build forms, landing pages, listings etc
- Create an elegant, bespoke design
If you want complete control over the look, feel and functionality of your job board, SeedProd is a top choice.
You avoid being locked into the constraints of pre-designed themes. And can craft a more branded, polished portal without coding expertise.
However, it does require more manual setup. Where job board plugins provide ready-made forms and templates, you‘ll be building them yourself with SeedProd. So factor in a steeper learning curve and development time.
But for maximum creative freedom and customization, SeedProd can be worth the tradeoff. You can mimic the features of paid job board plugins through the flexible drag and drop interface.
Overall, if budget isn‘t a constraint and you want to meticulously design your ideal job site, SeedProd is a powerful option. Even with the learning curve, you‘ll get the exact job board you envision.
3. WPJobBoard (Paid)
WPJobBoard is a premium WordPress job board plugin priced at $129.
It‘s packed with features and customizable options that position it between WPJM and SeedProd.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Great all-in-one feature set | Higher price tag |
| Intuitive customization | Some support complaints |
| Developer regular adds features | Less design flexibility than SeedProd |
WPJobBoard allows you to:
- Post jobs with custom fields
- Accept payments for listings
- Manage applicants
- Create employer/candidate accounts
- Build a resume bank
- Offer membership packages
It essentially has all the functionality you‘d expect in an advanced job board plugin. With the features it packs, WPJobBoard offers excellent value at $129.
You can tweak and tailor the job board‘s appearance and functionality to a degree. But you won‘t have the total creative freedom of something like SeedProd.
WPJobBoard strikes a great balance between an easy-to-use job plugin and complete customizability. And the developers regularly add new features based on user feedback.
If you want a more robust job board than WPJM provides out of the box, and don‘t need total design control, WPJobBoard is a leading choice.
Top WordPress Job Board Themes Compared
Job board themes offer similar features and functionality to plugins. The main difference is putting design front and center.
Themes allow you to showcase your brand visually through the job portal right out of the box. Let‘s look at two top premium themes.
1. JobRoller
JobRoller is a popular job board WordPress theme priced at $59.
It combines wide design customization options with robust job board functionality.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Modern, beautiful design | Not as feature-rich as some plugins |
| Visual customization options | Occasional bugs reported |
| Active support and updates | Less flexible than true page builder |
JobRoller makes it easy to create a stunning job board with features like:
- Employer/Candidate dashboards
- Powerful job search filters
- Paid job listings
- Job alerts and resume bank
- Blog and landing pages
You can fine tune colors, fonts, layouts, logos and more to match your brand.
The combination of visual design configuration options and built-in templates allow you to achieve nearly any look and feel. All without coding expertise.
For showcasing your brand visually right off the bat, JobRoller is a compelling choice. Even over more robust plugins that require design work.
2. JobEngine
JobEngine is another premium job board WordPress theme starting at $59.
It focuses heavily on visual customization and branding.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Tons of design options | Not as feature-rich as plugins |
| Unique homepage template | Some users report issues |
| Translation ready | Light documentation |
Some key features include:
- Front page job search template
- Paid listings and premium plans
- Employer job dashboard
- Custom fields for listings
- Front-end site builder
JobEngine stands out through its huge array of design configuration options. You can fine tune just about every element of the job board visually.
Supported by the unique homepage job search template, you can create a truly tailored job portal experience.
If you want maximum design flexibility right out of the box, JobEngine is worth a look.
Which Should You Choose for Your Job Board?
The best WordPress job board solution for you depends on your priorities:
- Are you willing to pay or do you need a free option?
- How fast do you need to launch your job board?
- What design flexibility do you need?
- What feature set is mandatory for your portal?
WP Job Manager is the fastest free option to launch a basic job board. But it lacks more advanced functionality present in paid solutions.
Plugins like WPJobBoard provide robust features and customization in an all-in-one package. While SeedProd offers unmatched creative freedom.
Themes like JobRoller allow you to showcase your visual brand immediately. But may not have the features of top plugins.
My recommendation is start with WP Job Manager since it‘s free. Once you validate the opportunity with a simple board, you can always switch to a paid plugin or theme to enhance functionality and design.
No solution will meet every need out of the box. Figure out your must-have features and priorities before selecting the best job board platform.
Tips for Growing Your Job Board
Once you‘ve launched your WordPress job board, you need to attract employers and job seekers to start generating value.
Here are 5 proven tips based on my experience:
1. Optimize for Organic Search Traffic
SEO will likely be the biggest source of targeted visitors over time. So ensure your job listings and pages follow SEO best practices:
- Descriptive page titles and meta descriptions
- Optimized URLs (e.g. domain.com/company-job-title)
- Internal links between relevant pages
- Fast load times
- Mobile responsiveness
Also provide a sitemap and use XML site feeds for discovery.
2. Promote Site Launch
Do PR outreach to trade publications, influencers, and websites in your industry. Ask them to help announce your new niche job board.
Cold email targeted companies inviting them to post jobs as initial customers. Offer discounts or free credits to sweeten the deal.
3. Leverage Existing Social Channels
Promote new listings and site updates on your social media accounts. Run cost-effective targeted ads on platforms like Facebook to relevant audiences.
4. Foster User Generated Content
Encourage employers and candidates to provide testimonials, reviews, and referrals for your site. Syndicate this UGC on your homepage and social proof pages.
5. Consider Paid Job Distribution
Tools like ZipRecruiter and Indeed allow you to syndicate postings through their massive networks for increased exposure. This may merit testing once you gain traction.
Ready to Build Your WordPress Job Board?
I hope this guide has provided lots of helpful insights into the leading job board plugins and themes for WordPress.
The options available today make it easy to launch a great job portal even with limited time or budget.
You can start small for free with WP Job Manager, then assess whether to upgrade later based on traction and revenue.
Be sure to optimize your job site speed by choosing one of the best web hosting providers. This is critical for SEO and conversions.
If you have any other questions on starting a successful WordPress job site, please contact me! I‘m always happy to help fellow webmasters whenever I can.
Let me know if you end up building a cool niche job board using any of these solutions!
