Many Job portals allow you to post your resume online, thus enabling recruiters to locate potential applicants. Recruiters also use social networking sites and LinkedIn to recruit in addition to using traditional means of recruiting like classified job listings.
But now a days, since many people already have their entire profiles updated on LinkedIn, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a WordPress plugin that would have features of a WordPress Job board while being able to fetch data from LinkedIn.
Such a WordPress Job Board Plugin ideally would consist of two main functions-
1. For the job seekers to view, search for positions and submit their resumes
Job seekers would need to create their profiles on the website and upload resumes. They may also write letters and send it via mail to the recruiters. They may also search for the required jobs using categories.
2. For the recruiters to post their job vacancies
The recruiter will post open job positions and contact a seeker in case the job seekers profile matches the recruiters criteria.
Going into the technicalities to develop this on WordPress:
For a Job Seeker:
1. Candidates who are looking out for a job will first need to register in order to upload their resume. Registration can be done in two ways:
- either by filling up the ‘Submit Resume’ form given on the website or
- by logging in using his LinkedIn account.
In case if the candidate logs in using his LinkedIn account, the candidate’s data from the database of LinkedIn will be saved on the WordPress site where the Job Board Plugin is installed. This happens via the OAuth mechanism which allows the candidate to grant access to private data without sharing their private credentials (username/password). Many sites have started enabling APIs to use OAuth because of its security and standard set of libraries. But this data fetched from LinkedIn would just be the candidate’s basic information, so next time the user logins at the website he’ll have to enter rest of the information manually. On the other hand if the candidate registers on the website using the ‘Submit Resume’ form, he’ll have to enter all his information just once.
2. After registration, the candidate will need to upload his resume by entering all the required files.Basic details of the candidate could also be automated using the LinkedIn REST API(where the user’s browser makes a request to the URL and receives a response) . This fetches the user details such as basic profile, educational information, company details etc as respone to the request made. To implement the REST API, a LinkedIn App would need to be created which will first ask the candidates to grant permission for accessing their details. Once the candidates allow the LinkedIn App to access their details, the LinkedIn App automatically fetch the all the candidate details from LinkedIn and saves the data in the WordPress site’s database
Please Note:
- Candidates can upload their resume in .doc, .docx, .rtf, .pdf, .txt formats and can also upload a video resume.
- Candidates can be provided with the feature to create PDF of their resume using the Resume Submit plugin that is used.
- Candidates may also have the option to download or edit their resume form in the plugin.
- After uploading the Resume, candidates may also send their resume to a specific recruiter using the email id form.
3. Another good feature of the Job Board Plugin is to have a Job Search form for the candidates. From the candidate’s perspective having a relevant job is extremely important. So we may give the candidates an option to chose their job preference ( Eg- Software, Computer Networks, Database)
For the Recruiter:
- The Login process for the recruiters would be the same like that of the job seeker.
- Recruiter can search for a candidate based on the categories and subcategories.Suppose if a recruiter is recruiting software developers they may select software developer in the category column. This will display an optimized list of all the candidates who have opted for software development during registration. The displayed list of candidates will have basic details such as the candidate’s name, contact number, address and a link for the recruiter to download the candidates resume.
- Suppose the recruiter is partially unsure of contacting the candidate, he may mark that particular candidates resume as favorite. So when the candidate is marked favorite , his details will be saved in the favorite category list of the particular recruiter. In case if the recruiter wants to contact the candidate, he can go to his favorite list and get the candidate details.
Recruiters have to pay to job portals in order to post their job openings. By using such a WordPress Job Board Plugin they can have their own job portal along with the added advantage of LinkedIn integration. Also, for someone who wishes to have his own job portal, the Payment Gateway functionality can be added to such a Job Board Plugin, in order for the other recruiters to pay and post jobs on the website.
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