Most recruitment agencies advertise the same roles in three places at once: a big job site, a couple of sector boards and their own website. The first two bring volume. The third is the only one the agency owns, and it is often the weakest: a list of vacancies that links out to an application form somewhere else, or a contact page and a phone number.
A proper job board on your own site changes that. Candidates search your roles, apply on your domain and sign up for alerts from you. Every application lands in your system rather than a third party’s, and every candidate who registers is someone you can contact about the next role. Over time, that list is worth more than any single advert.
This guide covers what an agency needs from job board software and how to set it up on WordPress with WP Career Board. The examples are written for UK agencies, with pounds, hourly rates and UK data protection in mind, but the setup is the same anywhere.
What an agency needs that a single employer does not
A company hiring for itself posts its own roles under its own name. An agency is different in a few ways, and the software has to keep up with them.
Many clients, one team. An agency posts on behalf of several client companies, sometimes under the client’s name and sometimes under its own. Consultants need to manage all of those roles from one place.
Several sectors. A generalist agency might recruit for healthcare, warehousing and office support at the same time. Candidates in each sector want to see their roles, not everything.
A pipeline, not an inbox. Applications need to move through stages: screened, shortlisted, put forward to the client, interviewed, placed. A list of emails does not show where anyone is.
A candidate pool that outlives the role. The candidate who was second for a role in March may be the right one in June. Their details need to stay findable, with their consent.
Temp, contract and permanent. Hourly rates for temp and contract roles, annual salaries for permanent ones, and dates that matter.
The rest of this guide takes each of those in turn.
Posting for many clients from one account
In WP Career Board, one employer account can run several companies. The employer dashboard, the applications screen and the Post a Job form cover all of them, so a consultant switches between clients without logging in and out.
Each company gets its own public profile page, with a logo and description, and the free plugin includes a company directory. That gives you two ways to work:
- Under the client’s name. A role for a care home group appears under that group’s company profile. This works when the client is happy to be named.
- Under the agency’s name. Confidential roles appear under the agency’s own company, with the client described in the advert rather than named. This is the usual choice for a search where the client has not announced the vacancy.
You can mix both on the same board. The company profiles page shows what a profile looks like.
A UK example
Take a recruitment agency in Leeds placing nurses, care assistants and support workers. It has a dozen regular clients: care homes, a private hospital group and two home care providers. Some are happy to be named. Two are not.
The agency creates a company for each named client and one for itself. Consultants post named roles under the client’s company and confidential ones under the agency. Candidates browsing the board see a mix of named employers they recognise and agency roles described by area and setting.
A board for each sector
A candidate looking for warehouse shifts does not want to scroll past nursing roles. In Pro, you can run several job boards on one site, each with its own branding, its own price for posting if you charge, and its own pipeline stages.
For a generalist agency, a board per sector is the natural split: one for healthcare, one for industrial and logistics, one for office and administrative roles. Candidates land on the board for their sector, and consultants who specialise in one sector work in one board.
Jobs can be filtered by type, category, location, experience, tag and salary range. Categories and locations can be nested, so “Yorkshire” can sit above “Leeds” and “Bradford”, and “Nursing” above “Mental health” and “Theatre”. Employers can pick up to three categories per job in Pro.
If you delete a board later, its jobs move to the default board rather than disappearing.
Hourly rates, salaries and pounds
British Pound is built in, and a salary can be shown per hour, per month or per year. That covers the usual agency mix:
- A temp warehouse operative role at an hourly rate.
- A three-month contract role at a monthly or hourly rate.
- A permanent office manager role at an annual salary.
The salary range filter lets candidates narrow by pay. Job types come set up as Full-time, Part-time, Contract, Freelance and Internship, and you can add a Temporary type for temp work in a minute. Remote roles are marked as remote in the job’s structured data.
Applications, and the pipeline behind them
The free plugin captures applications on your own site, including from candidates who have not created an account. Applicants can upload a CV in PDF, DOC or DOCX. On the employer side, each application has a status, private notes and a rating from one to five, and applications can be exported to CSV.
Pro adds the applicant tracking pipeline: a kanban board where consultants drag each applicant through stages. Stages are set per board, so the healthcare board can have a “Compliance checks” stage that the office board does not need. A typical agency pipeline looks like this:
- New
- Screened
- Shortlisted
- Put forward to client
- Client interview
- Offer
- Placed
Moving a card saves the stage. A consultant opening the board on Monday morning sees where every candidate for every role stands. The applicant tracking pipeline page shows it working, and what an applicant tracking pipeline is explains the idea if your team is new to it.
Screening at volume
A popular temp role can draw a lot of applications in a day. Pro has AI tools that can help a consultant get through them: a fit score from 0 to 100 with a short reason, a summary of each applicant, and matching of candidates to jobs. You choose the provider, including a local model if you would rather candidate data did not leave your server.
Treat these as a first pass, not a decision. A consultant should read the shortlist, and your screening should be fair and explainable to candidates. The AI application screening page covers what it does and does not do.
A candidate pool you own
The most valuable thing a job board gives an agency is a candidate pool that belongs to it. In Pro, candidates can build a structured resume or upload a CV, and the resume database lets your team search them.
Each resume has a privacy setting: public, visible to logged-in users only, or visible only to approved employers. For an agency, “approved employers only” is usually the right default, so only your own team and the clients you approve can see candidate details. Candidates can mark themselves open to work, and you can feature candidates you are actively marketing to clients.
Job alerts in Pro bring candidates back. A candidate saves a search, such as “care assistant, Leeds”, and gets a daily or weekly email when new roles match. That is how a one-off applicant becomes someone who checks your board every week.
The resume database page has the details.
UK data protection, in practice
Running your own board means candidate data sits on your own site, in your own WordPress database. Under UK GDPR, that makes your agency the controller of it, which is true whichever tool you use. The board gives you the tools to meet your duties; it does not meet them for you.
What the plugin provides:
- Export and erase. Candidates can request an export or erasure of their data, and each request is logged.
- Resume visibility. In Pro, resumes can be kept to approved employers only.
- Deleting a CV. When a resume is deleted, its uploaded CV goes too. A copy that was already sent with an application is kept with that application.
- Optional emails. Members can switch off optional emails from their dashboard.
What stays with you: your privacy notice, how long you keep candidate data, the lawful basis for keeping it, and how you handle a request that arrives by email or phone. The ICO’s guidance for recruitment is the place to start, and your data protection lead should sign off the setup.
What the board does not do for an agency
Be clear about the edges before you commit.
- No right to work checks. Right to work and other pre-employment checks happen outside the board.
- No timesheets, payroll or invoicing. Temp placements still need your back-office system.
- No CRM. The board is not a client relationship system, and there is no Zapier or webhook connection today. A developer can connect it through the REST API and hooks.
- No multiposting service. Pro publishes a feed for each board, but there is no built-in push to named third-party job boards.
- No paid access to candidates. Selling access to the resume database to outside employers is not built in, by design.
- No profile completeness meter for candidates.
None of these is unusual for job board software. They mark where the board stops and your other systems take over.
Self-hosted or a hosted platform
Hosted job board and recruitment platforms are quick to start. Someone else runs the servers, and there is a monthly bill that usually grows with your usage. You do not own the platform, and moving your candidate data out later depends on what it lets you export.
A self-hosted board on WordPress turns that around. You need WordPress hosting and someone to apply updates. In return, the board lives on your own domain, matches your own site and keeps candidate data in your own database. There is no per-listing cut and no per-placement fee.
For an agency that already has a WordPress site, the self-hosted route usually makes sense: the brand, the vacancies and the candidate list end up in one place. For an agency with no one to look after a site, a hosted platform may be the better fit. The comparison with job-board SaaS goes through the trade in more detail.
Setting it up, step by step
- Install WP Career Board on your WordPress site and run the setup. The free plugin gives you job listings, applications, both dashboards and company profiles.
- Set the currency to British Pound, decide how salaries are shown for each kind of role, and add a Temporary job type if you place temps.
- Build your categories and locations. Nest towns under counties or regions, and specialisms under sectors.
- Create a company for each named client, plus one for the agency itself for confidential roles.
- Add Pro for multiple boards, the pipeline, the resume database and job alerts. Create a board for each sector and set its pipeline stages.
- Post your current roles. If you are moving from WP Job Manager, the migration tool brings jobs across. Otherwise, the CSV importer handles a list of vacancies.
- Write your privacy notice and set resume visibility before you open registration.
- Tell candidates. Add the board to your site’s navigation, email your existing candidates and point your social posts at your own adverts rather than a third party’s.
The guide to creating a job board on WordPress covers the install in more detail.
A second UK example: a London tech recruiter
A small London agency places software engineers and data roles, mostly permanent with some day-rate contracts. Its clients prefer not to be named until interview.
It runs one board, not several, because its sector is narrow. Most roles sit under the agency’s own company with the client described by size and industry. Permanent roles show an annual salary in pounds; contract roles show a rate with the role marked as a contract. Its pipeline has fewer stages than a volume agency’s, with a technical test stage before “Put forward to client”.
The value for this agency is the candidate pool. Engineers who were not right for one role get a job alert for the next, and consultants search the resume database before they post a new role at all.
What it costs
The free plugin runs a full board with applications, both dashboards and company profiles. Pro starts at $69 a year for one site, with a lifetime option, and adds multiple boards, the hiring pipeline, the resume database, job alerts, AI tools and paid posting if you want to charge clients to advertise. You pay for your own hosting. There is no cut of placements or listings.
If you want clients to pay to post or feature their own roles, the monetization page covers credits, and job board pricing models helps with the price. The pricing page has the current plans.
Where to start
Start with the free plugin and your current vacancies. Get the categories, locations and company profiles right, and post a week’s worth of roles. Then add Pro when you are ready for sector boards and a pipeline. A board your agency owns takes a little longer to set up than a hosted one, and every candidate who signs up stays yours.