Thanks to a really positive response from readers of my recent review of The Best Classified Ads Themes for WordPress I’ve decided to continue the “theme” (excuse the pun) and write up another WordPress product driven article about my experiences working with the overwhelming expanse of Job Board themes and plugins for WordPress.
What is a job board site?
For those of you who don’t know, a Job Board website is an online version of the traditional Job board. In recent years, a string of well known developers have built easy to use out of the box Job Board themes to make it easy for individuals to build out and run their own Employment Websites. It offers a simple pricing model and with the right niche and some smart SEO and promotional tactics it’s not as difficult as you might think to get your new online business up and running. As themes have advanced, you can now find yourself with a feature rich jobsite with just a few hours work. These WordPress Job Boards are typically piped into common payment gateways, and make it easy to set up pay per ad or ad buckets with ease. More recently I’ve seen some of these developers including automatic feeds to sites such as Indeed Jobs – so you don’t even have to create the content yourself. Other great features have included CV Libraries, tailored areas for recruiters or applicants separately and the ability to have users create their own profiles showcasing their work. For the purposes of my own learning I did set up and now run with some moderate success the growing WordPress Job List (Using JobRoller from App Themes).
The best Job Board themes for WordPress – Reviewed!
JobRoller
From App Themes
JobRoller from AppThemes
★★★★★
$99
GET THEME Developer Theme Demo
Taking the top spot once again is App Themes. Those guys just know how to create a solid WordPress theme! JobRoller is a beautiful, feature rich, out of the box wordpress job board theme.
JobRoller is one of the most well known and most popular wordpress job themes available, and for good reason. It has all of the standard functionality you might expect and caters to all three aspects of the market. Recruiter and Job Seeker registration, a CV database with an easy to use search function, and of course a simple application process for the job ads themselves. The process of submitting jobs is remarkably simple two, the easy to use submission wizard helps employers quickly post great looking job ads to the site in just a few minutes.
JobRoller user management is also excellent, offering multiple dashboards tailored to the level of access for the given user. So no matter what the role of the logged in user, access to the tools they need is right there at their fingertips, uncluttered by unnessisary fluff.
Out of the box JobRoller comes packaged with a great looking User Interface, though it is advisable to make significant alterations to this, to break yourself apart from the plethora of other sites out there which use the theme. As a starting point it’s fantastic. The theme is fully responsive, so it looks great on mobile and tablet devices, and the feature rich interface makes it a breeze for users. Possibly one of the most important aspects to consider is the ability to search. JobRoller offers users the convenience of a radius/ location based search, allowing job seekers to browse for jobs in or around their location. Multi-language support means you can build a global job hunting website, and charging and earning money is a breeze as it comes with paypal plugged in from day one – additionaly you can purchase plugins to allow the theme to support many other payment gateways in just a few moments.
JobRoller has a very powerful settings page, allowing users to make changes in general to the way the site works, great job and cv moderation tools so you can ensure only quality content is being submitted by your users, automatic spam moderation and an integrated advertising panel so you can monetise the site further with key advertisements. Additionaly you get all the added functionality you’ve come to expect as standard with wordpress – such as custom URLs, taxonomy configuration and the omi-present admin toolbar.
JobRoller is a well established theme on the market, it’s stable and has come along way since it’s first release several years ago. The pioneering theme from App Themes it’s virtually bug free and is well documented and has pleny of support. With so many developers and thousands of job sites now being powered by this theme, it’s a virtual certainty that if you have a problem, someone else has already had it, and solved it.
All in all, JobRoller is a solid theme with plenty of support. It’s great for anyone looking to start slow with fast results. Full of quick wins and hidden features, you can spend as little or as much time as you want cultivating your site, and with regular updates and first class support you shouldn’t ever be stuck for too long. As always I suggest you check out the demo first, play around and test it out before you commit to buy. For users without the technical know how it’s a great theme to get started with, and for those who want to get to the nuts and bolts of it, it’s well supported and easy to understand, with exceptionally well commented code. For recruiters and employers job posting is simple and can be automated, and the CV library is a welcome additon in recent versions. Job seekers will be happy too, with the powerful search and job filtering tools, and the email alerts to get job updates
Key Features
Easy to customize front page
Custom Job Types
Resume (CV) Database
Auto Resized Images
AJAX & jQuery Features
Job feeds from Indeed & More
Responsive Design
Advanced search functionality
Social Network integration
Category and site wide rss feeds
Themed login and sign up pages
Multi-currency support
Sales and job charts widgets
Support for recruiters and recruiter specific roles
Transaction Logging
Apply for Job Form
Hundreds of Child Themes and Plugins
Powerful API
Multiple colour schemes
SEO Optimised
Ajax auto-complete
Multi-language support
Email alert engine
PayPal IPN support
Automatic job pruning
JobEngine
From Engine Themes
JobEngine From Engine Themes
★★★★
$129
GET THEME Developer Theme Demo
JobEngine from wizard developers EngineThemes is a super simple, super customizable WordPress theme with a great UI. It’s got much of the standard stuff you might expect from a solid job board theme, with a searchable CV library, job application form and filtering for jobs by location, type and category. The site utilises AJAX so everything’s very slick and very smooth and page reloading is kept to a minimum. JobEngine really excels at it’s payment structuring, with out of the box support for multiple gateways and different easy to customise payment plans. As is the standard these days, the theme is fully optimised for mobile devices.
The JobEngine admin panel is full of lots of functions and features. From here you can manage the pricing structure and the job types. You can add, remove and test diffetent payment gateways and control virtually every aspect of your new job site.
Key Features
Job Management – location, type and category sorting
AJAX job filtering
Resume (CV) Database
Online applications
Email templates and management
Flexible payment plans
Lots of payment gateways
Smart design tools
Translation support
Regular updates
JobJockey
From Color Labs
JobJockey From Color Labs
★★★★
$79
GET THEME Colour Labs Theme Demo
JobJockey is a lightweight premium WordPress Job application theme that requires probably the least amount of technical knowledge to set up. At $79.00 it’s at the lower end of the job board pricing pool, and can form the basis of a good solid job board website. Out of the box it supports paypal and has the basic functionality you might expect, but it lacks some of the cooler bells and whistles found on the higher end themes such as JobRoller or JobEngine.
Whilst it does lack a few more complex features, it does have a few tricks of it’s own. The interaction controls are fantastic, and this is what really set’s it a part and makes it a bargain at the price tag it’s offered at. Administrators have control over how the users and visitors interact with the site. By defining the roles of users (all be it only by a choice of two), it’s possible to customise the features and functions specifically for that user group. This makes it really easy to truly tailor the website to the needs of the specific user. This added control also brings an extra level of security, block/ ban tools are prominent, and administrators and users can choose whether or not to make information such as their CV’s public on the site.
Simple filtering tools make it easy to search and browse for jobs too. Where JobJockey falls short is the lack of ability to customise email templates, there are some great features relating to email notifications, it is not possible to alter the content of said notifications, there is also a lack of automation – themes like JobRoller make automation super simple, where as even the act of featuring a job post is a manual process with JobJockey. Be prepared to spend some of your time on basic admin tasks.
It’s a solid theme at the right price, but it lacks the overwhelming features offered by the slightly more expensive themes.
Key Features
Job Seeker Registration/ Employer Registration
Separate dashboards for seekers/ employers
Favourites and notifications
Custom Forms
Responsive Design
Paypal integration
Slick and well designed UI
Lifetime membership and support
Cost Effective
SEO Optimised
Other notable WordPress Job Themes
JobsHub from ColorLabs
Jobs Hub from ColorLabs
Price: $79.00
Demo
Buy Now
JobPress from Dailywp
JopPress from DailyWP
Price: $119.00
Demo
Buy Now
Jobify from ThemeForest
Jobify from ThemeForest
Price: $55.00
Demo
Buy Now
SpotFinder from ThemeForest
Spotfinder from ThemeForest
Price: $45.00
Demo
Buy Now
Pricerr from Sitemile
Pricerr from Sitemile
Price: $69.00
Demo
Buy Now
Remember: Choose a WordPress job theme that’s fit for your audience
Of course you can just upload a job board theme, buy your domain, enter your settings and launch your job site, in little more than a few hours. But to really be successful and realise a recurring income, there’s a significant amount of effort that needs to be put in. Job listing websites have three key audiences. The employment seekers, the recruiters and the employers. When selecting the right theme for your new online business it’s important to consider all three, and make sure you’re asking the right questions.
Does the theme cater to all three demographics?
What type of users can I expect to encounter in my chosen niche?
Does the employment sector you’re targeting use recruiters or are they primarily focused on direct recruitment?
Are you focused on the full time employment market, or the freelance market?
Potential employers and recruiters will always look to use online job listing websites, it’s a fact of life that the internet is an multifacceted hub and a significant percentage of recruitment now happens online. Choosing a job board theme which is well suited to your audience and the people most likely to use your website will give you the best head start possible. You’ll also want to consider this when setting up your business. Where is the revene coming from? Do you plan to charge individuals to post jobs – the more typical method, or do you plan to charge employment seekers to reply to ads – this method, whilst less well known has been seen to work with great success on Freelance Switch from the Australian company Envato. Envato saw huge success, in no small part thanks to their previously untapped resources – having a healthy base of freelancers in their various marketplaces, meant when they launched their job site, they already had a huge network of hungry freelancers willing to pay to get access to new freelance projects and leads. Their low cost monthly subscription meant for a freelancer, even just winning one or two projects a year from the site made it a worthwhile investment.
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