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Quick start

Go from installing Vakanssi to a published job, a live careers page, and your first application in about twenty minutes, with links to the detail whenever you want it.

On this page(7)

This is the shortest path from an empty WordPress site to a role you can share and applications you can work. Each step links to the page that covers it properly, so read on where you need to and skip where you do not.

Set aside about twenty minutes. You need an administrator login and nothing else.

1. Install the plugin

  1. In the left sidebar of the WordPress admin, click Plugins, then Add Plugin (Add New Plugin on WordPress 6.6 and 6.7).
  2. Search for Vakanssi, click Install Now, then Activate.
  3. A Hiring menu appears in the sidebar. That menu is where all your hiring work happens.

Vakanssi needs WordPress 6.6 or newer and PHP 7.4 or newer. Below that it refuses to activate and tells you so, rather than half-working. See Requirements & installation for the full detail, including installing from a ZIP file. The plugin’s listing is at wordpress.org/plugins/vakanssi.

2. Run the setup wizard

Activating opens a five-step wizard (six when there is data from another hiring plugin to import): your company name and brand color, your careers page, and the emails candidates receive. It takes about three minutes, and nothing is published without your OK.

  1. Click Start setup.
  2. Enter your company name. It becomes the sender name on candidate emails and goes into your jobs’ Google for Jobs data.
  3. On the Careers page step, let Vakanssi create a page, or connect a page you already have. If it spots a likely candidate on your site, it offers to connect that rather than create a duplicate.
  4. Set the sender name and address your candidate emails come from, plus where new-application notifications should land.
  5. Click Continue to reach Finish, which offers Post a job as your next step.
The wizard's Welcome step. You can re-run the whole thing later from Hiring, then Tools, so nothing here is a one-time decision.

Skipped it, or want to change an answer? Re-run it any time from Hiring, then Tools, then Status, with the Run setup again button on the Getting started card. See The setup wizard for what each step writes.

3. Post your first job

  1. In the Hiring menu, click Add New Job.
  2. Type the job title, then write the description in the main editing area. Aim for a few real sentences: Google wants genuine detail, and Vakanssi needs at least 30 characters before it counts as a description at all.
  3. Fill in the Job details box below the description. Its three tabs cover where the role is, what it pays, and how people apply.
  4. Watch the Google for Jobs banner at the top of that box. It tells you live what is still missing for the role to be eligible for Google’s job search.
  5. Click Publish.
The Job details box. Fill in what the banner asks for and the role becomes searchable on Google, with no SEO plugin involved.

Have a spreadsheet of roles instead of one? Import jobs from a CSV creates them in bulk. Coming from another hiring plugin? Import brings your existing jobs and applications across.

4. Look at your careers page

Open the careers page the wizard set up. Your published job is already on it, with a search box, a remote-only toggle, and an application form attached to every role. A team filter joins them once your roles span more than one team. There is nothing to design or wire up.

Your careers page, on your own domain. Share this link, or link it from your site's menu.

This is the URL to share and to link from your site’s navigation. See Your careers page for filters, pagination, and putting a job list on any other page.

5. Work your first application

When someone applies, the Hiring menu grows a red count, and the applicant lands in your pipeline. Open Hiring, then Applications.

  1. In Pipeline view, each column is a hiring stage. New applications arrive in the first one.
  2. Click a card to open the candidate panel: their cover letter, CV, details, notes, and interviews.
  3. Move them on with the Move to buttons in the panel, or by dragging the card to the next column.
Pipeline view. Drag a card from one column to the next, and the move saves right away.

Candidates get an automatic confirmation email, and your rejection and offer emails are editable templates. See Working with Applications and Emails.

What you have now

A careers page on your own domain, a published job with Google-for-Jobs structured data, an application form with CV upload and spam protection, a pipeline to move people through, and candidate emails that send themselves. All of it free, with no cap on jobs or applications.

Where to go next

Journey

The recruiter journey

The same ground as a narrative, from the new-application email through to the hire.

Getting started

A tour of the Hiring menu

Every screen under the Hiring menu, one at a time.

Getting started

Going live: production setup

Two standard WordPress steps that keep the retention purge and other background jobs on schedule.

Help

Free vs Pro

What the free plugin already does, and what a licence adds for teams.