Capabilities & Roles

WP Career Board ships with 3 custom roles and 13 custom capabilities. Site administrators have every Career Board cap by default; the custom roles get a focused subset. Use this page to decide what to grant team members.

The custom roles

Role	Slug	Purpose
Employer	wcb_employer	Posts jobs, manages a company profile, and reviews applications
Candidate	wcb_candidate	Anyone who applies to jobs and manages a resume
Job Moderator	wcb_board_moderator	Reviews pending jobs and approves/rejects

Note on the Job Moderator slug: the role slug stays wcb_board_moderator for back-compatibility with existing assignments, but the display label is Job Moderator (renamed in 1.4.x because the role moderates jobs - boards are admin-only config and carry nothing to moderate).

Banning is not a role. There is no wcb_employer_banned role. Suspending an employer is a per-user flag (_wcb_employer_banned user-meta) set from the admin Employers screen. See Banning an employer below.

The 13 capabilities

Capability	What it lets the user do
wcb_post_jobs	Post a job, edit / republish own jobs
wcb_apply_jobs	Apply to jobs, submit a resume on the apply form
wcb_manage_company	Edit the company profile they’re attached to
wcb_view_applications	See incoming applications for their job posts
wcb_manage_resume	Create / edit / publish a resume (Candidate flow)
wcb_bookmark_jobs	Save jobs to “My Saved Jobs”
wcb_withdraw_application	Withdraw an application after submitting
wcb_moderate_jobs	Approve or reject pending jobs
wcb_access_admin_jobs	Reach the admin Jobs queue (granted to moderators + admins)
wcb_view_analytics	See the analytics dashboard (Pro)
wcb_manage_settings	Configure Career Board settings, emails, integrations
wcb_access_employer_dashboard	See the Employer Dashboard page
wcb_access_candidate_dashboard	See the Candidate Dashboard page

Default capability map

Role	Capabilities granted
Administrator	All 13
Employer (wcb_employer)	read, wcb_post_jobs, wcb_manage_company, wcb_view_applications, wcb_access_employer_dashboard
Candidate (wcb_candidate)	read, wcb_apply_jobs, wcb_manage_resume, wcb_bookmark_jobs, wcb_access_candidate_dashboard, wcb_withdraw_application
Job Moderator (wcb_board_moderator)	read, wcb_moderate_jobs, wcb_access_admin_jobs
Editor / Author	None by default - grant wcb_post_jobs (and related caps) only if you want editorial staff to act as employers

The roles and admin caps are kept in sync on every load, so cap and label changes shipped in a plugin update reach existing installs without re-activation.

Granting capabilities to other roles

The easiest path is via a role manager plugin (User Role Editor, Members, etc.):

1. Install your preferred role manager.
2. Edit the target role.
3. Tick the Career Board capabilities you want to grant.
4. Save.

For “Editor as Employer” - a common editorial scenario:

Grant the Editor role:

• wcb_post_jobs
• wcb_view_applications
• wcb_access_employer_dashboard
• wcb_manage_company (so they can edit their company profile)

That gives editorial staff the ability to post and review jobs without the broader site-admin access.

Built-in registration

The plugin’s registration flow creates accounts with these roles:

• Employer registration - the Employer Registration block (placed on the “Employer Registration” page by the Setup Wizard) creates a user with the Employer (wcb_employer) role, which already carries wcb_post_jobs, wcb_manage_company, wcb_view_applications, and wcb_access_employer_dashboard.
• Candidate registration - the Candidate Dashboard register tab creates a user with the Candidate (wcb_candidate) role.

By default any logged-in member can apply to jobs and manage a resume even without the Candidate role - jobs and resumes are commonly a side-feature of a community site. Turn on Settings → Job Listings → Require Candidate Role (or filter wcb_candidate_requires_role) to reserve the candidate experience for users who hold the candidate cap.

Banning an employer {#banning-an-employer}

Banning is done from the admin Employers list, not by changing the user’s role:

1. Go to WP Career Board → Employers.
2. Use the Ban row action on a single employer, or tick several rows and choose Ban from the bulk-action menu.

This sets the _wcb_employer_banned user-meta flag, which the Abilities layer reads to strip every WCB ability from that user regardless of which caps their role carries.

Effects:

• They lose every WCB ability - cannot post jobs, apply, manage a resume, or reach the dashboards.
• Existing published jobs stay live. If you want them down, change the job’s status to pending or draft separately.
• They can still log in (they keep read).

To unban, use the Unban row or bulk action on the same screen, which deletes the meta flag.

How the plugin actually checks permissions

Internally Career Board uses the WordPress Abilities API (wp_register_ability + wp_is_ability_granted) rather than raw current_user_can calls. Each capability above maps to a namespaced ability slug:

Ability slug	Backing capability
wcb/post-jobs	wcb_post_jobs
wcb/apply-jobs	wcb_apply_jobs
wcb/manage-settings	wcb_manage_settings
wcb/moderate-jobs	wcb_moderate_jobs
wcb/manage-resume	wcb_manage_resume
wcb/bookmark-jobs	wcb_bookmark_jobs
wcb/withdraw-application	wcb_withdraw_application
wcb/manage-company	wcb_manage_company
wcb/view-applications	wcb_view_applications
wcb/access-employer-dashboard	wcb_access_employer_dashboard
wcb/access-candidate-dashboard	wcb_access_candidate_dashboard
wcb/view-analytics	manage_options (admin-only; reserved for Pro analytics)

You only need to grant the underlying capability - the Abilities layer reads it. The wcb/manage-settings and wcb/view-analytics abilities are admin-gated and check manage_options directly rather than a dedicated cap. Both the cap form and wp_is_ability_granted() work in your own theme/plugin code, though wp_is_ability_granted() is the canonical call.

Note: a banned employer (the _wcb_employer_banned flag) is denied every WCB ability regardless of the caps their role holds.

Adding your own role

If you want a custom role (e.g. “Premium Employer”) with a different mix:

add_action( 'init', function () {
    add_role( 'wcb_premium_employer', __( 'Premium Employer', 'my-addon' ), array(
        'read'                          => true,
        'wcb_post_jobs'                 => true,
        'wcb_view_applications'         => true,
        'wcb_manage_company'            => true,
        'wcb_access_employer_dashboard' => true,
        'wcb_view_analytics'            => true,  // Pro-only, no-op without Pro
    ));
});

To remove the role on uninstall, call remove_role() in the same file (or in your plugin’s uninstall hook).

Troubleshooting permissions

“You don’t have permission to do this” when an employer tries to post a job.

Check the employer’s user role has wcb_post_jobs. The fastest check:

wp user get <login> --field=roles
wp user list-caps <login> | grep wcb_

“You don’t have permission” when admin tries to change settings.

The settings screen is gated on manage_options (the wcb/manage-settings ability), which Administrator has by default. An Editor temporarily acting as admin does not have it.

Candidate registered but can’t apply.

Their role might have been overridden by another plugin’s registration flow. Check wp user get <login> --field=roles - it should be wcb_candidate. If it’s subscriber or customer, either change the role manually or add wcb_apply_jobs to whatever role they got.