WordPress · Job board playbooks · Free + Pro

Run a job board on your WordPress site.
Hire on it. Or charge other people to post on it.

Six playbooks for running hiring inside WordPress. Replace a SaaS ATS, monetize a niche audience, add hiring to your BuddyPress community, or drop a careers page into a client site. Powered by WP Career Board (free + Pro). No shortcodes, no jQuery, no page reloads.

Pick your journey Try free in your browser Read the docs →
  • 6journey playbooks
  • 0SaaS subscriptions
  • 0jQuery loaded
  • 5minutes to live

What are you trying to do?

Six playbooks. Pick the one that matches your situation.

Each playbook shows the scenario, the outcome you'll have at the end, and the 3-5 step setup. The product is the engine; the journey is the page.

Journey 1 · BuddyPress community hiring

Members post jobs to the activity stream. Each group has its own Jobs tab.

You run a BuddyPress community. Members already chat, post activity, join groups. The next ask is hiring - they want to post roles to people they already trust.

  1. 01

    Activate WP Career Board free

    On a site with BuddyPress already running. The Setup Wizard creates Jobs, Post a Job, Employer Dashboard, and Candidate Dashboard pages with the right block on each.

  2. 02

    Turn on activity integration

    Approved jobs auto-post into the WCB activity component. Application status changes hit the candidate's bell with localised verbs.

  3. 03

    Map member types

    Employer and Candidate member types appear in the member directory automatically. Profiles get a "Roles posted" or "Applications sent" linked widget.

  4. 04

    Add Pro for group-scoped boards

    WP Career Board Pro adds a Jobs tab to every BP group. Group admins approve or reject postings without holding the global moderation cap.

  5. 05

    Optional: charge non-members to post

    Wire WooCommerce Credits (Pro) so non-member employers buy credits to post. Members in your tier post free. Cheapest applicable tier wins.

Try this journey in a sandbox Download the free plugin →

Journey 2 · Replace your SaaS ATS

Move candidates from Applied to Offer on a Kanban inside your own WordPress install.

You are paying $5,000+/year for Greenhouse or Lever for a team of 5-15 people. The product is good, the SaaS bill is not. You already run WordPress.

  1. 01

    Activate WP Career Board free

    Sets up the underlying job posts, employer dashboard, application records, and JobPosting schema for SEO.

  2. 02

    Install WP Career Board Pro

    Pro extends free with the Application Pipeline. Both must be active. License unlocks immediately on key entry.

  3. 03

    Define your hiring stages

    Pro lets you configure stages per board: Screening, Phone Screen, On-site, Reference Check, Offer. Drag candidates across them in the Kanban view.

  4. 04

    Wire automatic status emails

    Every stage change sends a templated email to the candidate. Eight free templates ship; override per stage from Settings.

  5. 05

    Cancel the SaaS subscription

    Your data stays. Your hiring runs on a Kanban styled by your theme. Replace one $5k/year line item with a one-time license.

Get WP Career Board Pro See full Pro feature list →

Journey 3 · Niche paid job board

Sell credit packages. Employers spend credits to post. You keep 100% minus payment-gateway fees.

You run a niche audience: WordPress developers, climate-tech operators, indie podcasters, doulas, whatever. Employers want to reach them. You want to charge.

Employer balance 8 credits Next post: -1 credit
  1. 01

    Activate WP Career Board + Pro + WooCommerce

    Pro requires free; the WooCommerce Credit System is a Pro module. All three plugins active is the baseline.

  2. 02

    Create credit packages

    WooCommerce products at any price (1 post for $29, 5 posts for $99, 20 posts for $299). Employers buy through your WC store with any gateway.

  3. 03

    Set per-board pricing

    If you run multiple boards (Tech / Marketing / Remote), set different credit costs per board. Featured upgrade is its own SKU.

  4. 04

    Tier by membership

    PMPro level or MemberPress membership defines how many credits each user pays. Cheapest applicable tier wins.

  5. 05

    Plug into your existing audience

    Sub link from your newsletter, podcast, or community page to the Post-a-Job form. Cron sweeps expired Featured flags daily.

Get WP Career Board Pro See pricing tiers →

Journey 4 · Reign Theme careers page

Hiring as a native part of your Reign community. Live in five minutes.

You run a Reign Theme community site. Members already hang out here. The next ask is hiring - and you don't want to glue on a separate tool that fights the theme's design.

  1. 01

    Grab from your Wbcom account

    WP Career Board is bundled with every Reign Theme license. Sign in to wbcomdesigns.com, go to Downloads, grab the plugin zip. Zero extra purchase.

  2. 02

    Activate and run the Setup Wizard

    One wizard creates Jobs, Post a Job, and the two dashboard pages. The Reign integration auto-detects and styles every screen to match Reign typography and colors.

  3. 03

    BuddyPress wiring is automatic

    If Reign + BuddyPress are both active (the usual stack), job activity goes into the stream, member types appear in the directory, and profile linking switches on without any settings to flip.

Try this journey in a sandbox Download the free plugin →

Journey 5 · Agency client careers page

A block-based job board you can drop into any client site and hand over.

You build WordPress sites for clients. One client just asked for a careers page. You do not want to add a $5k/year SaaS to the proposal or train them on a separate admin.

  1. 01

    Install on any Gutenberg theme

    Works on any theme that supports the block editor. The plugin inherits the client's typography and colors automatically. No theme child-mod needed.

  2. 02

    Drop the four blocks

    Find Jobs block on the careers page. Post a Job block on the post-job page. Employer Dashboard and Candidate Dashboard blocks on their respective pages. Configure once.

  3. 03

    Hand over without training

    Client manages jobs from the block editor they already know. Updating the careers page is just editing a page. No separate admin module to learn.

Try this journey in a sandbox Download the free plugin →

Journey 6 · Self-hosted, privacy-first board

Candidate data on your server. GDPR export and erasure built in.

You operate in the EU, in healthcare, in education, in finance - anywhere candidate data cannot legally leave your servers. SaaS ATSs are non-starters.

  1. 01

    Install on your own server

    WP Career Board runs entirely inside WordPress. No external API calls for application data, no SaaS sync, no candidate data leaving your infrastructure.

  2. 02

    Enable reCAPTCHA v3

    Score-based spam protection ships free on both the job posting form and the apply form. Configure your reCAPTCHA keys in Settings, done.

  3. 03

    Trust the WP Privacy API

    Personal data export and erasure requests route through the standard WordPress Privacy tools. Candidate exports their data or asks for deletion, you fulfill from the same dashboard you use for any other user.

Try this journey in a sandbox Download the free plugin →

Nothing to bolt on

Every job-board capability covered. One license, no add-ons.

Other plugins ship a thin core plus $49 add-ons for each capability below. WP Career Board covers all of them inside the free plugin, plus a single Pro license for the advanced ones.

  • Applications & tracking

    Free

    Run the full applicant lifecycle without an add-on.

    • Track every applicant across 5 statuses (Submitted, Reviewing, Shortlisted, Rejected, Hired)
    • Accept guest applications, no account required
    • Bulk-export the full applicant list to CSV with one click
    • Send automatic status-change emails at every transition
    • Collect resumes (PDF, DOC, DOCX, up to 20 MB)

  • Resume database

    Pro

    Search candidates by skill, not by sifting cover letters.

    • Candidates build structured resumes inside your site
    • Employers search by skills, location, years of experience
    • Single-page resume form or multi-section builder
    • Add custom resume fields via the wcb_resume_form_fields filter

  • Job alerts & reminders

    Free + Pro

    Bring candidates back without paying for an alert add-on.

    • Job Alerts: candidates subscribe to keyword + location combinations (Pro)
    • Deadline reminders: 3-day and 1-day re-engagement emails to saved-but-not-applied candidates (free)
    • Status change emails at every state transition (free)
    • BuddyPress bell notifications for application activity (Pro)

  • Company profiles

    Free

    Candidates see who they apply to before they click Apply.

    • Public company page with logo, description, team size, location
    • Linked to every job posting automatically
    • Employers manage all of it from a frontend dashboard - no wp-admin

  • Hiring pipeline (ATS)

    Pro

    Move candidates Applied to Offer on a Kanban inside WordPress.

    • Configurable stages: Screening, Interview, Offer, or any stage you define
    • Drag-and-drop Kanban view
    • Per-board stage configuration (different boards can use different pipelines)
    • AI-assisted job description writing inside the Post a Job form

  • Search & filtering

    Free

    Live filters with no page reload, no jQuery, no SaaS search.

    • Filter by keyword, location, job type, category, salary range, remote policy
    • Salary range slider with chip pills showing the active range
    • Powered by the WordPress Interactivity API, the same runtime as the Query Loop block

  • SEO & schema

    Free

    Eligible for Google Jobs without an SEO plugin.

    • Every job page outputs valid JobPosting schema.org structured data
    • No Yoast / RankMath / SEOPress required for the structured data layer
    • Sitemap entries auto-generated for every active job

  • Privacy & spam

    Free

    EU-friendly out of the box. No SaaS data transfer.

    • reCAPTCHA v3 score-based spam protection on every form
    • Personal data export and erasure via the WP Privacy API
    • All application data stays on your server
    • Guest applications avoid forced account creation

How any journey starts

Same three steps unlock every playbook.

  1. 01

    Activate WP Career Board (free)

    Upload the plugin zip. No server config, no external accounts, no API keys before you start. The Setup Wizard creates the four required pages with the right block on each.

  2. 02

    Add Pro if your journey needs it

    Replace-ATS and Niche-paid-board need Pro for Kanban and WooCommerce credits. The other four journeys run on free.

  3. 03

    Open your jobs page

    Employers post from the frontend. Candidates apply, track status, save listings. BuddyPress and Reign Theme connect automatically when active.

Compare

Why these journeys aren't possible on other tools.

Each row is what the alternative makes you trade away - not which feature wins on a matrix.

Alternative What you give up WP Career Board
Greenhouse / Lever (SaaS ATS) You rent a SaaS for $5,000+/year. No WordPress integration. Your candidate data lives on their server. Replace ATS journey: self-hosted on your site.
WP Job Manager + paid add-ons You pay $49 each for guest applications, reCAPTCHA, BuddyPress, GDPR. Still no Kanban or multi-board. BuddyPress + niche board journeys: free.
JobBoardWP / Apply Online plugins No Gutenberg blocks. No Interactivity API. No multi-board. No way to monetize. Any journey here: native blocks, no jQuery.
Building it on top of WPJM with custom dev 6+ months and $10,000+ to retrofit a Kanban pipeline, multi-board, and a credit system. Live in under 5 minutes. One license.

Common questions

Quick answers before you commit to a journey.

Is the free version actually free, or a limited trial?

Permanently free. The free plugin is a complete job board: employer and candidate dashboards, application tracking, BuddyPress integration, reCAPTCHA, GDPR, and JobPosting schema all ship at no cost. WP Career Board Pro is a separate product that adds the Kanban pipeline, multi-board, resume search, and WooCommerce monetization.

Which journeys need Pro?

Replace-ATS needs Pro for the Application Pipeline (Kanban). Niche-paid-board needs Pro for the WooCommerce Credit System and Multi-Board Engine. BuddyPress community hiring works in free; Pro adds group-scoped boards. Reign Theme careers, Agency, and Privacy-first journeys all work entirely on free.

Do I get WP Career Board with my Reign Theme license?

Yes. WP Career Board is bundled with every Reign Theme license. Log in to your Wbcom account, go to Downloads, and grab it. Activate, run the Setup Wizard, and the Reign integration switches on automatically.

Does it require BuddyPress?

No. WP Career Board works on any WordPress site. BuddyPress is optional. When active, it unlocks activity stream integration, employer and candidate member types in the directory, and profile linking. None of it needs extra configuration.

Will it slow down my site?

No JavaScript framework is loaded. The frontend runs on the WordPress Interactivity API, the same runtime as the Query Loop block. No jQuery, no React bundle, no extra libraries. REST endpoints are cached; job queries use object cache when available.

How much does Pro cost?

Pro starts at $69/year (Personal, 1 site), $99/year (Developer, 5 sites), or $199/year (Agency, unlimited). Lifetime tiers start at $199. Every purchase includes a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Can I try before buying?

Yes. The InstaWP sandbox spins up a fresh WordPress install with WP Career Board pre-configured. You can poke around the full plugin in your browser, no install on your own server needed.

What happens if I uninstall?

Deleting the plugin removes all data: jobs, applications, company profiles, and settings. Deactivating without deleting preserves everything. Export your data before uninstalling if you need a backup.

Pick a journey. Spin up a sandbox. Have it running before lunch.

Six playbooks, one plugin, zero SaaS subscriptions. Try free in your browser first, or download and run the Setup Wizard on your own site.

Try free in your browser Download free Read the docs →