The recruiter journey
A plain-language walkthrough of hiring with Vakanssi, from posting a job to making the offer, with Free and Pro steps marked along the way.
On this page(10)
This page follows one role from start to finish, the way you would actually work it. No WordPress knowledge is assumed. If a word is new, we define it the first time.
Everything here happens inside wp-admin, the private dashboard area of your own website. You reach it by adding /wp-admin to your site address and logging in. Once Vakanssi is active, you get a single menu called Hiring on the left. That menu is home base.
Free or Pro
Most of this journey works on the free plugin. Where a step needs Vakanssi Pro, you will see a Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license badge. Nothing in the free flow is a trial or a teaser: you can post jobs, collect applications, run the whole board, interview, email, and hire without paying.
1. Set yourself up (once)
When you activate Vakanssi, it opens a short setup wizard. It walks you through the basics: your company name, the sender identity your candidate emails come from, and your careers page (the page on your site where jobs are listed).
If it finds jobs from another plugin it offers to import them, and it finishes by pointing you to post your first job. Until every setup step is done, Hiring HQ shows a Getting started checklist with a link back to the wizard. After that, the same checklist lives under Hiring, then Tools, then Status.
Once that is done, Hiring HQ is your home screen. It opens with a Today row of four queues: applications nobody has opened, offers awaiting a decision, interviews in the next 7 days (or your pipeline total, with the Interviews feature switched off), and open roles. The first two say how long their oldest item has waited; the last counts roles with no applicants yet.
2. Post a job
A job in Vakanssi is a normal WordPress entry, so posting one feels like writing a page.
- In the Hiring menu, click Add New Job.
- Type the job title (for example, “Engineering Manager”) and write the description in the main editor.
- Fill in the Job details box below the description. It has three tabs: Workplace & location, Compensation, and Employment & application. These cover where the role is based (including its Location), the salary range, the employment type, and how people apply.
- On the right, pick a Department so candidates can filter by team.
- Click Publish.
As you fill in the details, Vakanssi checks whether the job qualifies for Google for Jobs, the jobs area of Google search. A green Eligible banner means Google can pick the role up automatically. If something required is missing, the banner tells you what to add.
You do not need to write structured data
Google for Jobs needs machine-readable job data behind the scenes. Vakanssi writes that for you from the fields above, and quietly holds it back if a job is not eligible (expired, no location, no way to apply). There is nothing to hand-code. See Google for Jobs for the full checklist.
3. Your careers page goes live
The moment you publish, the job appears on your careers page, the public list of open roles on your own website. Candidates can search it, toggle remote-only, and filter by team once your roles span more than one team.
You do not have to build this page by hand. If you ever want a job list somewhere else (a landing page, a department page), you can drop one in with the Job Listings block in the editor. The details are in Your careers page.
4. Applications start arriving
When someone applies, three things happen at once:
- The applicant gets a confirmation email so they know it went through.
- You get a notification email that a new application landed.
- The application shows up in your inbox, and the counter next to Hiring in the menu ticks up.
The candidate fills in a short form on the job page: name, email, an optional phone and LinkedIn, their CV, and an optional cover letter. They also tick a consent box before they can submit, which keeps you on the right side of privacy rules.
CVs are kept private
Uploaded CVs are stored under random file names in a protected folder inside your uploads directory. Vakanssi blocks direct web access to that folder, and warns you if your server needs an extra rule. It also checks that each file really is a PDF or Word document. Only signed-in team members with permission can download them. More on this in Receiving applications.
5. Work the board
Open Hiring, then Applications. This is where you spend most of your time. It has two views:
- Pipeline view is a board: a set of columns, one per stage, that you drag people between. This is the path a candidate takes from New to Hired.
- List view adds sorting, filtering, and bulk actions when you have a lot of applicants.
The default stages are New, In Review, Interview, Offer, Hired, and Rejected, and HR / Compliance can rename, reorder, or add to them under Settings, then Pipeline, to match your own process. Since v0.33.42 a Customize stages link beside Add application on the Applications screen takes them straight there.
Moving a card to a Hired- or Rejected-type stage also closes the application, so your active pipeline only ever shows people you are still considering. There is more on the board and the candidate drawer in Working with Applications.
6. Open a candidate
Click any card to open the candidate drawer, a panel with everything about that person in one place. From the top of the drawer you can move them to another stage, edit their details, or print the application to PDF.
The header gives you the owner (Assigned to Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license, on Collaboration), Edit details, Print / PDF, and Delete, plus a Move to row of stage buttons. The tabs below are your workflow:
- Overview: their cover letter, CV, and whether they have applied before.
- Details: the person’s own information. With Sourcing Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license this is where their candidate tags live. The tab only appears when there is something to show.
- Notes: private notes for your team, yours to edit or delete any time. On the free plugin these are plain notes; with Collaboration Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license you can @mention a teammate.
- Interviews: schedule and track interviews, and (with Scheduling Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license) propose times for the candidate to self-book, all below.
- Scorecard Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license: structured team ratings (below).
- Screening Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license: the applicant’s answers to your screening questions, on applications that were asked them.
- Activity: a running history of everything that happened to this application, including the subject of every email sent, with a Resend link on the emails that can be sent again.
7. Interview and evaluate
Interviews are free. From the Interviews tab you schedule a fixed time, choose the format (video, phone, or on-site), add interviewers and internal notes for them, and send a calendar invite. You can edit its details, reschedule, cancel, or mark it completed once it has happened, all from the same place.
If you would rather let the candidate pick a slot themselves, Scheduling Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license adds a Propose times section to the Interviews tab: you offer a few options, the candidate books one from a private link, and it lands on everyone’s calendar. See Interviews and scheduling.
To compare candidates fairly, Scorecards Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license let each interviewer score against the same short rubric (for example: Skills, Experience, Communication, Culture add) and give a recommendation. The scores gather into one summary so a decision is based on evidence, not the loudest voice in the room. See Scorecards.
8. Emails happen on their own
Vakanssi sends the routine emails so you do not have to. Out of the box that includes the applicant confirmation, a rejection note, and a recruiter notification. There is also an offer email that is switched off by default until you are ready to use it.
Every template is yours to edit in Hiring, then Settings, then Emails, with personalization tags like the candidate’s first name and the job title. Each send is logged, so you always know what went out. See Emails.
9. Make the offer and close it out
When you have a decision, open the candidate and move them to Offer, then Hired. Moving to Hired closes the application as a win and drops it out of your active pipeline; moving to Rejected closes it the other way. If you have the offer email turned on, this is where it goes out.
That is the whole loop: post, publish, receive, review, interview, decide. On the free plugin you can run it end to end for as many roles as you like.
What the Pro tools add afterward
Once you are hiring regularly, the Pro modules turn the record you have already built into insight and reach:
- Analytics Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license turns Hiring HQ into a reporting screen: where candidates drop off, how long a hire takes, and which sources bring the best people. See Analytics.
- Candidates Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license keeps a searchable database of every person you have ever talked to, so a great runner-up is one tag away next time. See Candidates.
- Collaboration Pro feature, requires a Vakanssi Pro license brings @mentions, ownership, and the option to limit who sees which applications. See Collaboration.