Settings reference

A tour of the Hiring, then Settings screen, all eleven tabs, what each one is for, and the key options on General, Jobs & Careers, Application form, and Pipeline.

Everything Vakanssi lets you configure lives on one tabbed screen. Click Hiring in the left sidebar of the WordPress admin, then click Settings. Along the top you get eleven tabs, in this order: General, Jobs & Careers, Application form, Emails, Automation Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license, Interviews, Pipeline, Screening Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license, Scorecards Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license, Collaboration Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license, and Integrations Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license.

Only administrators and the HR / Compliance role can open this screen (see Roles & permissions). The five Pro tabs, Automation, Screening, Scorecards, Collaboration, and Integrations, exist only on Vakanssi Pro, and each one appears only while its feature is switched on under Features.

Most tabs save with a button at the bottom, and each tab saves only its own fields, so submitting one never touches values on another; the Integrations tab applies each action as you make it. If you edit a field and try to leave the tab before saving, your browser asks you to confirm first.

General

Site-wide preferences that are not specific to job pages or the application form, grouped into cards.

• Company: your Company name and Company logo, which is how your organisation appears to candidates and to search engines.
• Data retention: how long candidate data is kept before automatic anonymisation, set separately with consent to keep data (default 24 months) and without consent (default 6 months), each 1 to 120 months. A change only applies to applications submitted after it.
• Show on the apply form (same card, since v0.33.13, off by default): states the with-consent window as a line of fine print beneath the Submit button. See Privacy & GDPR.
• Data & privacy: Delete all data on uninstall, off by default. See Backups & data for what it does.

Jobs & Careers

Everything about your public job pages: Google-for-Jobs structured data, what each page shows, URLs, and front-end styling.

• Job page: a Page layout choice for a single job’s page. Vakanssi layout is the default: a clean branded page that works on any theme with no setup, is an editable Site Editor template on a block theme (WordPress 6.7 or newer), and still yields to a matching Elementor Pro Theme Builder Single template.
• My theme’s template (the other Page layout option) hands the page fully to your theme, a block theme, or another page builder such as Divi or Oxygen.
• Published date and Author: hide the theme’s own post-date and post-author blocks on a job page. These only take effect when Page layout is my theme’s template; Vakanssi’s own layout never prints either one. They work on block themes only: a classic theme prints its date and byline in PHP, which these toggles cannot remove. See Elementor, Divi, and block themes.
• Job details: uncheck Salary, Employment type, or Closing date to drop that fact everywhere a candidate could see it, the job page’s facts block, the matching row on the careers listing, and the JobPosting structured data, at once and on either layout. Location and workplace always show; Google requires them.
• Details block and Other open roles: turn off the auto-appended facts block (place one yourself with [vakanssi_job_details], or write the facts into the description) or the “other open roles” cross-links beneath it, on either layout.
• Expired jobs: how a job page behaves once its closing date has passed. Vakanssi already handles Google visibility for you (marking the page noindex and removing it from every sitemap, including Yoast, Rank Math, and All in One SEO’s); these two toggles only control what the page itself shows. See What happens when a job closes.
• Careers listing (since v0.33.3): an Apply button toggle, off by default, that adds an Apply button to every eligible role in the careers list so a candidate can skip straight to the application form. Roles that are closed, or whose applications have not opened yet, never show it. See Your careers page.
• Job search & SEO: the JobPosting structured data owner. This is the machine-readable job data that makes a role eligible for Google’s job search.
• Who writes the JobPosting data: choose Vakanssi to have the plugin write it (and suppress a duplicate from Yoast, Rank Math, or All in One SEO on job pages), defer to let your SEO plugin own it, or off to publish none from any plugin. Only one source should write it per job. See Google for Jobs.
• Job URLs: the Job URL base (the slug your job pages and archive live under), whether the archive page is on, and the Careers page selector (which page lists your open roles). Connecting or creating a careers page in the setup wizard turns the archive toggle off automatically, since the chosen page becomes your one jobs index; flip it back on here any time. See The setup wizard.
• Appearance: front-end styling for the careers, job, and apply pages.
  • A toggle to disable the front-end stylesheet (turn it on if your theme fully styles the careers and job markup).
  • A Custom CSS row that links to Appearance, Customize, Additional CSS, where your own styles now go. Since v0.36.0 Vakanssi has no CSS box of its own. Rules saved in the old box are no longer printed, so copy them across; they work unchanged there.
  • To restyle the Apply buttons there, match the weight of Vakanssi’s deliberately low-weight selectors, such as .vakanssi-apply-form .vakanssi-apply-button for the application form’s Submit button or .vakanssi-apply .vakanssi-apply-button for a job’s Apply link, and style :hover, :focus and :active too, since Vakanssi sets those as well. On most pages that is enough without !important.
  • The accent color used across these pages is not set here: it lives on the Emails tab’s Branding card, see Emails.

Application form

Everything about the public application form on your job pages, in one place, across a few cards.

Uploads and applicant fields

The Application form card sets the Accepted CV file types applicants may upload (PDF, DOC, and DOCX), the Maximum CV file size (5 MB by default), and a LinkedIn profile toggle (on by default) that adds an optional LinkedIn field to the form.

It also holds the Visitor IP source, which tells Vakanssi where to read a candidate’s real IP address for application rate-limiting. Leave it on Not behind a proxy unless your site sits behind Cloudflare or a reverse proxy, in which case choose the matching option so every visitor is not counted as one shared IP.

Either option only believes the forwarded header when the request actually arrived from a proxy Vakanssi trusts, never from an anonymous sender merely claiming one. See Firewalls & server compatibility.

Anti-spam challenge

The application form is always protected by a built-in honeypot, time-trap, and rate limiting, with no setup. Provider adds an optional CAPTCHA on top. The free plugin offers None (baseline only) and Cloudflare Turnstile; the Advanced anti-spam Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license feature adds hCaptcha and reCAPTCHA v3. Only the selected, fully configured provider is enforced.

Each provider gets its own card of key fields below the chooser. With Provider set to None, the default on every new site, every card stays open, since none is chosen for the others to collapse around.

With more than one provider card (that is, with Advanced anti-spam), picking a provider keeps its card open and collapses the rest. A Show other providers link reveals them without switching, and keys saved for an unselected provider are kept but inactive.

Since v0.33.17, whichever provider is active renders its challenge just above the consent checkbox and Submit button on the form, not between the fields. Cloudflare Turnstile also stays invisible unless a visitor actually has to click through, and matches the page’s own theme (light) and language instead of the visitor’s device.

Testing your keys

Below its key fields, every provider’s card ends with a Status line: not set up, keys saved but a different provider is selected, active but not tested yet, active but the keys changed since the last test, active and verified (with how long ago), or last test failed (with the reason).

Save your keys, then click Test these keys to run a real challenge against the provider and confirm the site key and secret key are correct and paired. The button appears only once both keys are saved. Since v0.37.6, it is not shown for a custom provider that has no challenge widget to load.

For reCAPTCHA v3, a successful test also reports the score it received, and warns you if your Minimum score is so high that a real applicant scoring that low would be turned away.

An untested or failing challenge is also flagged outside this tab: since v0.36.3 the compatibility test gives it its own row, and since v0.36.4 WordPress’s Site Health screen checks it too.

Provider unreachable

A checkbox labelled Let applications through if the challenge cannot be checked (fail open), on by default and recommended. When on, applications still go through if the challenge service cannot be reached, so a provider outage never turns away real applicants.

Turn it off to block submissions in that case. The applicant sees “We could not check the anti-spam challenge just now. Please try again in a moment.”, never the raw connection error. Either way, the honeypot, time-trap, and rate limiting keep running.

A visitor who skips the challenge entirely, or whose check could not be completed, is not treated as a bot: the form keeps what they typed, and the attempt is not counted as a strike against the rate limit. Only a tripped honeypot, time-trap, or a token the challenge actively rejects counts.

Since v0.37.6, the same setting also decides what happens when a custom provider’s own check breaks while someone applies, instead of the applicant getting an error page. Developers: see the vakanssi/antispam/fail_open filter in Hooks.

Emails

Set who your candidate emails are sent from (From name, From email, Reply-to), where new-application alerts go (Notify recruiter at, the site admin email by default), and your Branding: a Show logo in emails toggle and a Brand accent color. The Templates card edits the applicant confirmation, rejection, offer, and recruiter notification.

Make From email an address at your own domain. Left empty it falls back to your WordPress administrator address, and a free mailbox address there (gmail.com, outlook.com) is rejected by those providers when your host sends on its behalf. See Email delivery.

The accent is not just for email: it also colors your careers list, job and application pages, screening questions (Screening Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license), and the interview booking page (Scheduling Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license), so every candidate-facing surface matches.

Subjects and bodies accept personalization tags like the candidate’s first name and the job title, and each send is logged. Each address field is validated strictly: an entry that is not an exact, valid email address is rejected with a notice, and the previous value is kept rather than silently saved in a mangled form. This is a free tab. The full walkthrough is in the Emails guide.

Automation

Builds a library of reusable email templates and attaches one to an open pipeline stage so it sends by itself whenever a candidate arrives there, once per candidate per stage. Two cards, Custom templates and Stage rules. The full walkthrough, including the merge tags and exactly when a rule does and does not fire, is in Email automation.

Interviews

Defaults for interviews you schedule from a candidate: Default length (minutes), Default mode (video call, phone, or onsite), and the list of Interview types offered when you book. Scheduling interviews is free. See the Interviews guide for how booking and calendar invites work, and for candidate self-booking (Scheduling Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license).

Pipeline

These stages are the columns on your hiring board. Edit them to match how your team actually hires: rename them, reorder them, recolor them, mark each as Open (active), Won (hired), or Lost (rejected), and add or remove stages.

Each row is one stage. The first row carries an Entry badge, because that is where every new application lands on its own. Use the arrows to move a stage up or down, the swatch beside the name to set the color it gets on the board, and the Add stage button to append one. In this stage shows how many applications are sitting there right now.

Two rules keep a pipeline from breaking:

• A stage that still holds applications cannot be deleted. Its Delete box is replaced by a padlock until you move those candidates to another stage.
• The pipeline always needs at least one Open stage. New applicants need somewhere to land.

Renaming a stage never breaks anything that points at it. Only a stage’s Type, Open, Won, or Lost, decides whether moving a candidate into it closes the application; the name is just a label.

Change the type of a stage that already holds people and the screen tells you how many of them it will affect before you save: they are updated along with the stage, except for anyone marked withdrawn, who stays withdrawn. See Working with Applications for how stages and their types show up on the board.

The screen works without JavaScript too. In that case each row shows its order as a plain number and a blank row at the bottom is how you add a stage.

This is a free tab.

Screening

Sets the global default screening questions, which apply to every job that has no set of its own, including jobs you already published, and whether an applicant who gives a disqualifying answer is moved to your Lost stage automatically or just flagged. A job can override the default with its own questions. The full walkthrough is in Screening questions.

Scorecards

Defines the rubric your interviewers use: the Criteria they score, the Highest score on the scale (4 by default), and the overall Recommendation options. Since v0.35.0, an Independent scoring card can hide the team’s scores from a reviewer until they have saved their own. See the Scorecards guide for how reviews are collected and summarised.

Collaboration

Configures assignment visibility with one Scope by assignment checkbox: whether Recruiters and Hiring Managers see every candidate, or only the ones assigned to them (or still unassigned). Administrators and HR / Compliance always see everyone. See the Collaboration guide for notes, @mentions, and assignment, and Roles & permissions for how this setting interacts with roles.

Integrations

Sends hiring events to Slack, Microsoft Teams, or any webhook (Zapier, Make, or your own service). Rather than a settings form, this tab is a small manager: you add endpoints (a label, a type, a URL, the events they receive, and an Active toggle), or start from a Slack Quick start preset, then send a test delivery and review a delivery log.

The full walkthrough, including the event catalog and signature verification, is on the Integrations page.

The Tools screen

Separate from Settings, a Tools screen sits under Hiring, then Tools. It also opens only for administrators and the HR / Compliance role, and it has four tabs: Status, Import, Features, and Data. Unlike Settings, these apply each action as you make it rather than saving with a button.

Features

Turns Vakanssi features (called modules) on or off. Since v0.36.0 every module your site has sits in one list, each card showing whether it is running and a switch. Core, Jobs & Careers, and Privacy & Data Retention are always on. Disabling a module stops loading its code but never deletes your data. The full breakdown is on the Managing features page.

Import

Imports jobs from a CSV (the Import jobs (CSV) card), and brings jobs and applications over from another hiring plugin such as WP Job Openings (the Migrate from another plugin card, shown only when Vakanssi finds data it can import). The tab appears while CSV Import is switched on, or while Import is switched on and Vakanssi has found data to migrate. See Import and Import jobs from a CSV.

Data

A summary of how much hiring data your site holds, plus the tool to permanently delete all applicant data. See Backups & data.

Status

The tab also opens with a Getting started card mirroring your onboarding checklist. Since v0.32.18, its header carries a Run setup again button, the permanent way back into the wizard now that its own menu item disappears once setup is complete. See Re-running the wizard later.

Alongside it sit a Support report card (a snapshot of your setup to send to support, with no candidate personal data) and an Email test card (see Email delivery).

While the example jobs and candidates from the setup wizard are still on your site, a Sample content card adds a Remove sample content button that deletes them in one click. Your real hiring data is not touched, and the card disappears once the sample content is gone.

The System status card is a health check for your install, with an “All systems OK” or “Needs attention” badge at the top. Most of it is read-only. The rows are:

• Database tables: whether Vakanssi’s tables were created correctly.
• Unique indexes: whether the database indexes that prevent duplicate rows under concurrent writes are in place. A missing one flags “Needs attention”; Vakanssi retries adding it automatically on the next page load, so this usually clears itself.
• Protected storage: whether uploaded CVs are safely out of public reach. The row reads OK, “Not confirmed”, or “Needs attention”, depending on whether the check confirmed protection, could not run, or found the folder reachable.
• Job links: whether your Job URL base clashes with another page on the site (which would break job links).
• Version: the plugin version you are running.
• Schema: the database schema version your installed code expects, next to the version actually stored in your database, so a stalled upgrade is visible at a glance.

Protected file storage that reads anything but OK carries a Check storage again button to re-run the check on demand rather than waiting for its own retry (daily on success, every 15 minutes otherwise).

A CV folder that cannot even be created or written stops CV uploads outright. That is not shown on this row: since v0.32.8, WordPress’s Site Health screen reports it as a critical error naming the folder, and the compatibility test’s Application form row flags it too.

If any row reads “Needs attention” or “Not confirmed”, it tells you what to fix. See Troubleshooting if you are not sure how.

Compatibility test

Inside the System status card sits the Compatibility test, with a Run compatibility test button. Click it and Vakanssi sends one throwaway application through your real, public application form and checks the pages and services candidates depend on, then reports each row as working, skipped, or a problem:

• Application form (public POST): whether a candidate can actually submit an application. The test application is synthetic and never saved. If the CV folder cannot be created or written, this row says so, since a real application with a CV would fail the same way. See Troubleshooting.
• REST API (admin boards): whether the vakanssi/v1 REST namespace that the Applications board, notes, interviews, and scorecards depend on responds normally.
• Interview booking page (Vakanssi Pro only): whether a candidate’s booking link reaches WordPress instead of being swallowed by a cache or CDN. Skipped when Scheduling Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license is not active.
• Open positions and job pages (since v0.33.32): fetches a real job page and your open-positions page and reports a theme or page builder that broke them, for example a missing application form or a lost header and footer. Skipped with no published job.
• Anti-spam challenge (since v0.36.3): whether the challenge you switched on has been confirmed working with Test these keys. The test cannot complete a challenge itself, so with one switched on the application form row says the form is reachable and points here.

A blocked result means a firewall, security plugin, caching rule, or server lockdown is standing between candidates and your site. See Firewalls & server compatibility for the fix for each one.

Vakanssi also adds its own checks to WordPress’s Tools, then Site Health screen: candidate-file protection, expired-form rejections, scheduled tasks, email sending, the anti-spam challenge, CV upload size limits, stored CV files, outbound HTTP, visitor IP source, database tables and indexes, REST reachability, open positions and job pages, job URL clashes, and careers archive compatibility.

The database check mirrors the Database tables and Unique indexes rows above: a missing table or index shows up here as a critical issue too, naming exactly what’s missing.

Since v0.32.7, the Info tab of that same Tools, then Site Health screen also carries a Vakanssi panel, with the same snapshot as the support report on this tab: versions, database tables, CV storage, careers page, email, and scheduled tasks. Candidate data still shows only as counts, never a name, address, or file.

Your From address, any webhook hosts (Integrations Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license), and whether a custom storage folder is set appear on screen in that panel, but WordPress’s Copy site info to clipboard button leaves those out of the copied text, since that text often ends up pasted into a public support forum.