Jobify Review – One Of The Best Job Board Themes For WordPress
Online job boards are everywhere these days – think of any industry or career path and I’ll show you at least one dedicated job board.
It’s unsurprising, too; the internet attracts large pools of talented applicants, so employers are sensibly recruiting at source. By cutting out the middle-man, they also avoid exorbitant agency fees. And, for the job hunters themselves, job boards offer quick access to loads of jobs, usually with a quick application process, too.
In other words, the world of recruitment has gone crazy for job boards.
If you’re looking to launch a job board, WordPress is one of the best platforms around. To use WordPress, you will require a theme, though, making this post quite timely: today, I’m going to be reviewing one of the best WordPress job board themes: Jobify.
Jobify and WP Job Manager
Jobify is sold exclusively on ThemeForest, where it has the distinction of being the marketplace’s top-selling job board theme – and, in my opinion, one of the best.
The theme was developed by elite author, Astoundify. Rather than creating the all-in-one mega themes you see so often these days, Astoundify has carved out a reputation as niche theme specialists. For example, their portfolio also includes dedicated themes for digital marketplaces (Marketify) and directories (Listify).
As such, you know you’re in safe hands with Jobify, which comes with a $69 price tag – for a specialist theme with a great design and powerful features, this represents great value.
How have Astoundify built their reputation as specialists? By incorporating the functionality of market-leading plugins into their themes, whose developers can dedicate far more resources to building and maintaining a well-oiled machine.
In Jobify’s case, this means tight integration with the Automattic-acquired WP Job Manager plugin. This seems to be a winning combination – Jobify gets the best out of WP Job Manager by providing a design that’s tailored to the specific needs of a job board website, while Jobify enjoys WP Job Manager’s tightly-honed functionality.
Jobify also brings some of its own functionality to the table, of course, with features developed to enhance your job board’s aesthetics and usability.
Design and main features
The Jobify theme looks beautiful, featuring a clean design and striking typography. It utilizes lots of white space, making the site feel uncluttered and enhancing its usability.
The homepage is particularly stylish, coupling stylish aesthetics with job-board-specific functionality in the form of an interactive map. This provides a snapshot of listings’ locations, plus a handy filter helps job seekers to focus their searches. It’s also an important design feature.
The homepage feels dynamic, with eye-catching animations; brightly colored, full-width custom background images; and other cool features like pricing table and testimonials.
Jobify keeps the job listing sections clean, though, with an uncluttered and professional design. This includes color coordination and space for featured listings. These featured listings are displayed in stylish curved boxes, complete with thumbnail images.
The individual job listing pages look great, too, displaying a thumbnail image, job description, and even social sharing buttons. There are also links to the employer’s profile page and to other vacancies in the same category.
Visitors can apply for jobs directly from the job listing pages, which is a useful feature for encouraging large numbers of applications. Having pressed the Apply button, a simple lightbox appears, walking visitors through the application process. It all feels professional and intuitive throughout.
Other pages include a form for submitting resumes/job openings, a listings page for candidates/vacancies, and a tailored login page. The Jobify theme also ships with support for a dedicated blog section, too.
Getting started
After installing the theme, the next step is to install the required plugins. Jobify was developed specifically for use with these plugins, so don’t worry about any compatibility problems.
There are 15 plugins to install – one required, WP Job Manager, and 14 that are recommended. By harnessing the functionality of these 15 dedicated plugins, Jobify becomes a powerful, all-in-one job board platform – possibly the best in its class.
Installing this many plugins can seem intimidating, but, fortunately, Jobify ships with a quick-install feature.
Simply navigate to Appearance > Install Plugins, then choose the plugins you want (I recommend installing them all). Select Install from the drop-down menu, then hit Apply. As all 15 plugins are free, Jobify will install them all as a job lot. Sit back and wait a few seconds, as the download and installation is handled for you.
The final step is to activate the plugins you just installed. This is done via the Installed Plugins screen – Plugins > Installed Plugins.
Dummy content
A brand new website looks nothing like the theme demo, which can be rather disconcerting for inexperienced WordPress users.
To circumnavigate this problem, the Jobify .zip folder includes dummy content. You can install this by navigating to Tools > Import > WordPress. This will prompt you to install the WordPress Importer plugin (if you haven’t already), which can be used to install the jobify.xml file. This will add content and images to your site.
If you want to import widgets, too – setting your website up exactly like the demo – you need to install the Widget Importer and Exporter plugin. Then, navigate to Tools > Widget Importer & Exporter and import the jobify-widgets.wie file.
The process isn’t as polished as the one-click dummy content import found in many modern themes, but it does the job. And, because building an empty job board can be tricky, importing the dummy content is highly recommended!
Building your job website
Jobify also supports page builder-style functionality, allowing you to craft something memorable and unique.
This is achieved by making plenty of widget space available on the homepage. Jobify supports 20+ dedicated modules, which you can mix-and-match to build your perfect creation.
Before you begin, create a WordPress page using the Jobify Homepage template – found in a meta box to the right of the WordPress visual editor. To access the Jobify modules, navigate to Appearance > Widgets. Now use the drag-and-drop functionality to place the modules in the Homepage Widget Area section. With no live preview, this isn’t the easiest of processes, but persevere as the end results are well worth it.
To give you an idea of some of the modules available with Jobify, here are a few of my favorites.
- Jobs Map – a map created for the homepage, with pins indicating available jobs.
- Home Video – embed a video on your homepage.
- Pricing Table – if you’re looking to monetize your job board with premium listings, you can display your job packages in a stylish, customizable pricing table.
- Testimonials – display quotes from the job seekers/companies you’ve helped.
- Stats – entice companies to list their job with you by sharing statistics of how many vacancies you’ve filled.
- Companies Helped – a stylish carousel displaying the logos of businesses who advertise job listings with you.
There are also a number of customization options, which can be controlled from the WordPress Customizer – this includes the ability to customize your header and background colors.
Job board functionality
By installing WP Job Manager, Jobify comes equipped with all the core job board functionality you need. For your job board to become active, however, you’ll need to create several pages as required by the plugin.
This includes a job listings page, a page for employers to submit their vacancies, and a dashboard for employers to review their applications.
Of course, the easiest way to configure your job board is to import the dummy content. However, if you’ve decided to go it alone, you’ll need to create pages with the following shortcodes:
- For the job listings page: [job]
- For the job submission page: [submit_job_form]
- For the recruiter dashboard: [job_dashboard]
With these pages created, you can control your job board from the WordPress back-end.
You can create jobs by navigating to Job Listings > Add New. Below the standard WordPress editor, you’ll see a Job Data meta box. This will let you fill in all the important details about the role – job title, location, description, company, etc.
WP Job Manager also comes equipped with its own taxonomies, helping you to organize your jobs. For example, you can assign a region and a job type to each vacancy. This is done via meta boxes to the right of the editor.
As soon as you hit Publish, your jobs will appear live on the job listings page. You will also be able to approve any jobs submitted on the front-end by employers.
The WP Job Manager plugin is intuitive – as intuitive as such a complex plugin can be – so you should get the hang of managing your job board relatively quickly.
Premium functionalities
The free plugins installed earlier offer all the basic job board functionality you need. However, if you want to take your job board to the next level – or monetize it – you will probably want to extend the core WP Job Manager plugin with premium add-ons.
All official WP Job Manager extensions work seamlessly with Jobify, so don’t worry about any compatibility issues. Some of the most useful add-ons include:
- Resume Manager ($39) – applicants can upload their resumes for employers to peruse.
- WC Paid Listings ($39) – allows you to charge for job listings by integrating with the WooCommerce checkout.
- Applications ($39) – job seekers can submit their applications directly from the job listing page.
Jobify pro’s and con’s
Pro’s
- Excellent design, specifically built for job board websites.
- Quick setup with dummy content and widgets.
- Powerful functionality provided by WP Job Manager integration.
- Page builder functionality, with lots of useful modules.
Con’s
- Not compatible with some WP Job Manager modules.
- Advanced functionality requires users to open their wallets for premium extensions (this is a similar case with most job board themes).
Wrapping up this Jobify review
The Jobify theme makes the process of building, running, and maintaining a job board as painless as possible – no mean feat when you consider job boards are relatively complex by nature, with lots of moving parts.
The design looks gorgeous, with full color customization for branding purposes, plus lots of job board-relevant modules. My favorite is the job map, which makes your homepage feel dynamic while also helping job hunters to hone in on relevant jobs.
When it comes to job board functionality, Jobify has chosen well. With full integration with WP Job Manager, Jobify lets you handle all the behind-the-scenes day-to-day tasks involved with running a job board with ease. Plus, by adding premium WP Job Manager extensions to the mix, you have the option to take your site to the next level, with lots of professional features.
However, Jobify isn’t completely dependent on WP Job Manager. It brings its own features, too; most notably the page builder functionality. This incorporates some of its other useful features – like pricing tables, testimonials, and the job map discussed above – letting you build a website that’s tailored to the unique demands of your niche. Employers and employees alike will love it!
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. This means we may make a small commission if you make a purchase.
