Employer End-to-End: Hiring with WP Career Board

A complete walkthrough of one hiring round from the employer’s perspective: register, set up your company, post the role, review applicants, hire, and close out. This is what you’d hand to a new employer joining your board.

Free flow throughout. Pro-only steps are flagged inline.

What a typical hiring round looks like

Phase	Time	What you do
Setup	Day 0	Register, set up company profile, buy credits if needed
Post	Day 0	Draft the role, publish
Promote	Day 0-3	Share on socials, internal channels
Review	Day 3-14	Read applications, shortlist, interview
Decision	Day 14-21	Make offers, mark hired, close the role
Close out	Day 21+	Archive the role, manage company profile for next round

Step 1 - Register as an employer

Most boards have a public registration link. Look for one of these:

A button on the main job board (/find-jobs/) saying “Post a Job.”
A link in the site menu to “Employers” or “Hire Talent.”
A direct URL like /employer-registration/.

If you can’t find it, your site admin may not have wired the link. Email them - registration is open but unlinked.

Fill in:

Your name and email.
A password (or a magic-link if the site uses that).
Your company name (used to create your company profile).
Optional: phone, role at the company.

You’ll get a welcome email. Some sites require you to verify your email by clicking the link before you can post - if so, do that first. Then log in.

Step 2 - Complete your company profile

You’re now in the Employer Dashboard. Before posting your first job, complete the company profile - applicants see it on every job.

Employer Dashboard → Company.

Logo - square or rectangular, at least 200×200, max 2 MB. PNG / JPG. Most boards display 120-200 px.
Banner - optional, 1200×400 or similar wide format.
Tagline - one sentence (under 100 chars). “Building open source developer tools” is good; “We are a leading provider of innovative solutions” is filler.
About - two or three paragraphs. What you do, who you serve, what’s the team like. Specifics beat marketing copy.
Website - full URL including https://.
Locations - at least one city. Multi-location companies can list several.
Size - 1-10, 11-50, 51-200, etc. Helps candidates pre-filter.
Founded - year. Optional but adds trust signal.
Industry - pick the closest match.

Save. Open your company in a private window - you should see a public company page at /company/your-slug/. If it looks empty or wrong, go back and fix.

Step 3 - Acquire posting credits (if your board uses them)

If posting is free on this board, skip this step.

Credit-based posting requires WP Career Board Pro. Free posts are always free; the credit balance, ledger, and checkout flow ship in Pro (powered by the Wbcom Credits SDK). If the board uses credits:

Employer Dashboard. Your current credit balance shows on the overview stat cards.
When a board has a per-post credit cost and your balance is too low, the job form shows a Buy Credits link. (The link only appears when the site owner has configured a purchase URL via the wcb_credit_purchase_url filter / Pro settings.)
Complete the checkout your site owner set up.
After payment, your balance updates and the post deducts the required credits.

If your balance doesn’t update:

Refresh the dashboard.
Confirm the payment completed on whatever checkout your site uses.
Contact the site admin if it still doesn’t show.

Step 4 - Draft and post your first job

Employer Dashboard → Post a Job.

Fill the basic info

Title - write the title a candidate would search for. “Senior Frontend Engineer” beats “Software Engineer III” beats “Code Wizard.” Be specific without being clever.
Company - auto-filled from your profile. Verify it’s right.
Job type - Full-time / Part-time / Contract / Internship / Temporary.
Category - one or more. Don’t dump everything in “Other.”
Location - city, state, country. If remote, set both a “Remote” flag AND a primary city (helps with time-zone matching).
Deadline / Apply by - the date the listing expires. Default 30 days from posting. Leave blank for “until filled” if your board supports it.

Write the description

The description is the single most important thing about the listing. A few principles:

Open with what the role is, not what your company does. A candidate skims this in 8 seconds - anchor them in the role first.
List 5-8 responsibilities as bullets.
List 4-6 requirements as bullets. Split nice-to-have from must- have if relevant.
Be honest about expectations. Time zones, on-call, travel, in-office days - say it up front, save time on both sides.
Salary range. If your jurisdiction requires posting salary (NYC, parts of EU, California for certain roles), include it. Even where not required, posting a range improves application quality dramatically.
About us / why work here - last, three or four bullets max. Don’t repeat the company profile.

Pro tip: if you have Pro installed and AI Description Writer enabled, you can paste 4-6 key bullets and click Generate with AI. Always edit the output - it’s a starting point, not a final draft. See ../ai-features/04-employer-ai-features.md.

Application settings

The job form has two optional apply-routing fields. Leave both blank to use the on-site flow:

On-site (default) - leave the Apply URL and Apply Email fields blank. Applications come into the Employer Dashboard and run through Career Board’s email + status tracking.
Apply URL - an external URL. Candidates click out to your applicant tracking system (Greenhouse, Lever, Workable, etc.). When set, the single-job page routes Apply Now to this URL.
Apply Email - applicants send straight to this address. When set, the single-job page surfaces the apply email.

If you’re new to the board, leave both blank and use the on-site flow. It’s the only way Career Board’s email + status tracking + AI scoring (Pro) all work together.

Click Submit Job.

Step 5 - Wait for approval (if applicable)

Some boards require admin approval for new postings. If yours does:

Status reads Pending Review.
Site admin gets an email + admin notice.
Approval typically arrives within 24 hours on a moderated board.

Once approved (or immediately, on auto-approve boards), status flips to Published and the job goes live at /job/your-job-slug/.

If it’s been more than 48 hours with no movement, follow up with the site admin - sometimes the approval queue gets missed.

Step 6 - Promote the listing

Posting alone gets you maybe 5% of the applicants you should get. Promotion gets you the other 95%.

Share the URL on LinkedIn, Twitter, your company’s Slack / Discord, internal company channels.
Set up a job alert so candidates who match the criteria get notified automatically - if the board has alerts enabled, candidates do this on their side.
Cross-post to one or two niche boards. Hacker News Who’s Hiring, WeWorkRemotely, a Slack jobs channel, etc. Career Board exposes an enriched RSS feed at /jobs/feed/ that some aggregators consume automatically (it carries company, salary, location, type, category, tags, experience, deadline, and apply URL).

Step 7 - Watch applications come in

Employer Dashboard → Applications.

Each application shows:

Candidate name and current role / headline.
Submitted date.
Status (defaults to “Submitted”).
Resume download link.
Cover letter / answers to any custom questions you added.
(Pro) AI Fit Score 0-100 + one-line reason.

Click into an application to see the full detail and the candidate’s public profile (if they made it public).

You’ll get an email per application (as long as the admin has notifications wired correctly). If applications are arriving faster than you can read them in real time, set yourself a 9 AM / 4 PM block to triage rather than reacting to each email.

Step 8 - Triage applications

A simple triage pass:

Status filter to “Submitted.” Hides applications you’ve already triaged.
Read each in 30-60 seconds. Focus on resume + cover letter. Don’t read every detail yet.
Move to “Reviewing” if you’d consider talking to them - even if not yet sure.
Move to “Rejected” if it’s clearly not a fit (wrong role, no right-to-work, etc.).
Move to “Shortlisted” if it’s an obvious “yes, let’s interview.”

Each status move fires the “application status changed” email to the candidate (good - keeps them informed). You can edit that template (and every other email) in WP Admin → Career Board → Settings → Emails (admin-only).

Pro tip: if AI Fit Score is enabled, sort by it. Read top 10 first. Don’t auto-reject by score - see ../ai-features/04-employer-ai-features.md.

Step 9 - Interview shortlisted candidates

The board doesn’t run interviews - you do that externally. The board helps you stay organised:

Move applications through the five statuses (Submitted, Reviewing, Shortlisted, Hired, Rejected) to track where each candidate is.
(Pro) Use the List / Board toggle on the Applications view. The Board is a Kanban that groups applicants into status columns (Submitted, Reviewing, Shortlisted, Hired, Rejected); drag a card to change status, and the list, board, status emails, and AI ranking stay in sync.
(Pro) Use the Application Pipeline module and the Field Builder to add custom application fields and tags.

Step 10 - Make a decision

When you’ve picked your candidate:

Move to “Hired.” Email fires to the candidate.
Email the candidate directly with the offer - the board’s “Hired” email is informational, not the offer letter. Always send the formal offer separately with details.
Reject the rest. Move remaining shortlist candidates to “Rejected” with a courteous message. Some employers send a short personal email instead of relying on the template - your call.

Step 11 - Close out the role

Once filled:

Close the job from Employer Dashboard → My Jobs (the Close action). This takes it out of the public listing while your existing applications stay visible to you. (There is no separate “Filled” status; closing or letting the deadline pass removes it from the board.)
(Optional) Export applications to CSV. The bulk CSV export lives on the admin side: WP Admin → Career Board → Applications, select the rows, and use the export action. The spreadsheet includes applicant name, email, job, status, applied date, cover letter, and resume URL.
(Optional) Update your company profile with the new hire’s role / team if you list staff.
Refresh credits (Pro) - top up if you have another role coming up.

Step 12 - Build a candidate bench (Pro)

If you’ve installed Pro, the Find Candidates feature lets you search the candidate directory directly:

Employer Dashboard → Find Candidates.
Search by skill, location, headline, “Open to Work” flag.
Save candidates to a private list to revisit when a new role opens.
Send a short message asking if they’d be interested in your next role.

Free doesn’t include outbound candidate search - only inbound (i.e. candidates apply to you).

Common employer mistakes

Posting and walking away. The first 48 hours after posting is when most quality applications come in. Be ready to review.
No salary range. You’re competing for attention with listings that do disclose. Most candidates filter you out without one.
Slow status updates. Candidates check the dashboard for status changes. A week of “Submitted” feels like a no - they assume rejection. Move to “Reviewing” within 48 hours even if you haven’t read them fully yet.
Rejecting silently. Sending a “Rejected” status with the default email is better than ghosting. Candidates remember employers who closed the loop and apply again for future roles.
Posting the same job twice. Confusing for candidates. Edit and republish the existing posting instead of creating a duplicate.

What you should walk away with

After one full hiring round you’ll know:

How long applications take to start arriving on your specific board.
The ratio of applications to quality matches (helps you decide whether to widen or narrow next time).
What questions you wish you’d added to the application form (Pro: field builder).
Whether the board’s defaults work for you or you need to adjust (notification settings, default deadline, etc.).

Where to go next

03-candidate-end-to-end.md - see the other side of every step you just took.
04-monetizing-your-board.md - if you ARE the site owner deciding how postings get paid for.
../for-employers/12-troubleshooting.md - the troubleshooting reference for when something doesn’t behave.