Do you want to know how to create a WordPress job application form?
You just need the right WordPress job application plugin to make your candidate search super easy.
In this post, I’ll walk you through exactly how to create a job application form in WordPress.
Make Your Job Application Form Now
In This Article
- [Video Tutorial] Making a Job Application Form Online
- Step 1: Install WPForms
- Step 2: Select Job Application Form Template
- Step 3: Customize Your Job Application Form
- Step 4: Customize Your Job Application Form’s Notifications and Confirmations.
- Step 5: Add Your Job Application Form to Your Website
- (Optional Step) Add Conditional Logic
[Video Tutorial] Making a Job Application Form Online
We’ll be using the best WordPress employment application plugin to show you how to create a simple job application form.
If you would like to work through the written tutorial on how to create an application form, you’ll find everything you need in the steps below.
How to Create a Job Application Form in WordPress
This guide will walk you through how to make an application form using the best job application plugin for WordPress.
Let’s dive in.
Step 1: Install WPForms
Creating a job application form is very easy in WordPress, provided you’re using the right tools for it.
WPForms Pro allows you to create job application forms that look great and are fully customized to suit your specific needs and goals.
To start, you can purchase a WPForms Pro license which comes with a host of useful features alongside the ability to create job application forms, such as calculations and handy integrations with Google Sheets and marketing platforms.
After purchasing the license, you should go ahead and install WPForms on your site. If you need help with installing a plugin on your site, you can see this step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
After you’ve installed it, proceed to the next step where we’ll show you how to create your job application form.
Step 2: Select Job Application Form Template
After installing WPForms on your site, click on WPForms » Add New from your WordPress dashboard.
Give your form a name, then scroll down to select a template. For your convenience, WPForms includes 1,700+ form templates to choose from including templates for business forms and job applications.
You can use the search box to look for an appropriate template immediately such as:
- Simple Job Application Form
- Simple Employment Application Form
- Restaurant Application Form
- Job Application Upload Form
We’ll use the job application upload form template for this tutorial.
After you select the template, it will load up in just a few moments inside your form builder.
Notice how it already includes pretty much all the fields you’ll typically need in your job application from? That’s the advantage of using a WPForms template.
The best part is that, even if you want to change anything about this template, you can easily do it with the drag-and-drop form builder.
We’ll show you how in the next step.
Step 3: Customize Your Job Application Form
In the template that I picked above, you’ll notice two file upload fields: one for the resume and the other for the cover letter.
I recommend editing the labels of these fields to reflect important details like the file type you want people to use for their resumes and cover letters.
To change the file upload field settings, first click on the field inside your form. This will open its Field Options menu on the left.
You’ll now find various options on the left-hand pane of the form builder. I suggest editing the field label to specify the file type you want to restrict candidates to.
You can easily change the label by updating the text inside the Label box on your field options. The changes will immediately reflect on the form preview on your right.
By clearly mentioning your requirements in the field label, you can eliminate any confusion as the candidates will know exactly which types of files to upload when applying.
But the label only indicates a requirement. If you actually want to enforce restrictions on your file upload field, you’ll find a few options for that as you scroll down below the label and description settings. These are:
- Allowed File Extensions – Entering the names of file extensions here will force the field to accept only these file types. Make sure to separate the file types by commas (.pdf, .docx, and so on).
- Max File Size – Enter any number below your default max file size settings to limit the size of the files that can be uploaded in this field. This option accepts values in megabytes (MBs).
- Max File Uploads – Specify the total number of files that can be uploaded in the field.
For the 2nd file upload field in this form (which is for cover letters), you can repeat the same steps as above.
WPForms also give you the flexibility to automatically store an uploaded file in your WordPress Media Library. If you’d like to enable this functionality for your file upload fields, simply click on the Advanced tab from the Field Options menu bar.
Then, click on the toggle button next to Store file in WordPress Media Library.
If you want to capture more details from candidates applying to your job, here are a few ideas of additional form fields you might want to add using the drag-and-drop form builder:
- Position — You can use a Dropdown or Single Line Text field to have people specify which position they’re applying for.
- Start Date — Add a Date / Time field and let candidates provide info on when they’re likely to start.
- Referral — A Single Line Text field is ideal for collecting info on existing employee(s) who referred the applying candidate.
Finally, applicants will certainly want to verify the information they’ve added to each field in the form and have the option to go back and change anything before submitting the application.
You can easily add this functionality to your form by adding the Entry Preview field.
When you’re done customizing your form, click Save.
Good job!
In the next step, we’ll insert a few additional fields that only appear in certain conditions to gather finer details from the applicants.
Step 4: Customize Your Job Application Form’s Notifications and Confirmations.
By default, WPForms will send you an email notification to your default WordPress admin email address whenever an application submits the form.
You can check your notification settings by going to Settings » Notifications inside your form builder.
Feel free to change the subject line, Send To email address, the actual content of the notification message, and so on from these options.
If you want to receive the submitted resume and cover letter files as attachments in your notifications, that can be easily taken care of too.
Simply scroll down to the Advanced section of the notification settings and turn on the Enable File Upload Attachments button.
Then, use the dropdown menu to select the file upload fields containing the attachments you’re interested in receiving with the emails (remember that the fields are displayed here by the labels you’ve given them in your form).
When you’re finished here, I’d also recommend setting up another notification – this one for the applicants submitting the job application form. This way, the applicants will have the assurance of knowing that their application has been submitted successfully.
If you don’t want to send a notification to the job applicants, you can skip this part.
Setting up a Second Notification (Optional)
You can set up the second notification by scrolling to the top of notification settings and clicking on Add New Notification.
Give a name to the new notification and press OK.
Because this notification is intended for the person filling out the form, we’ll use the email address provided by the applicant in the form as the Send To Email Address.
Click on the Show Smart Tags link next to the Send To Email Address option (this link will read Hide Smart Tags after you’ve already clicked it) and select the Email field.
When that’s done, edit the other parts of the email like the subject line and From Name so that it’s appropriate and relevant from the applicant’s point of view.
Scroll down further and edit the email message.
“💡 Pro tip: The email notification gives you a good opportunity to provide more details about the job, in addition to information about your candidate evaluation process and when they can expect a reply. Of course, the level of detail you want to include is entirely up to you as an employer.”
The on-page confirmation message is another area that you can use to provide further details about the next steps for the job application.
To check the confirmation message, click on Confirmations on the left-hand pane while you’re inside Settings.
Use the text editor on the right to change the confirmation message. You can even add a link to redirect people to a page about the background of your company to help candidates learn more about you.
Make sure to Save your form again. All that remains now is to publish this form on your site!
Step 5: Add Your Job Application Form to Your Website
The fastest way to publish your WordPress job application form is via the WPForms embed wizard.
To begin, click on the Embed button (which is right next to Save at the top).
Once you’ve done that, select whether you’d like to embed the form on an existing page or a new one. For illustrative purposes, I’ll use go with the Create New Page option (though they’re both similar steps).
After that, you’ll see a prompt asking you to name your page. The name you enter here will be used as the H1 of your form page when you publish it.
When you’ve entered the name, press Let’s Go.
You’ll find yourself in your WordPress block editor with the form embedded inside. From this point, you can preview your form to take one final look. When you’re happy, go ahead and press the Publish button.
To view application form entries after they’ve been submitted, check out this complete guide to form entries. For example, you can:
- View, search, filter, print, and delete any application form entries, making the hiring process that much easier.
- Export all of your job applications in a CSV file.
(Optional Step) Add Conditional Logic
Suppose a person selects “Current Employee” as their answer to the question “How did you find out about this position?” in this application form. Wouldn’t it be cool if the form displayed a new field to collect the name of the employee who referred the candidate?
We can easily set something like that up with this form. Let’s add a Single Line Text field under the question.
You can change the label of this field to something like “Who referred you?” following the same steps as I showed previously for editing field labels.
Next, head over to the Smart Logic tab and toggle on the Enable conditional logic setting.
Then change the dropdowns to read “Show this field if How did you find out about this position? is Current Employee.”
Now, whenever an applicant indicates that they found out about this position by another employee, the new “who referred you” field will appear.
The result from the frontend will look something like this:
Once again, make sure to press Save at the top when you’ve made these changes.
Make Your Job Application Form Now
And there it is! You now know how to create an online job application form in WordPress using the WPForms plugin, so you can easily get job applicants and find the right person for the position you’re trying to fill.
Next, Take Your WordPress Forms to the Next Level
You’ve probably realized by now that WPForms is an extremely versatile form builder that also serves as a WordPress employment application plugin.
If you want to learn more, here are some articles displaying other awesome capabilities you get with WPForms:
- If your job application is lengthy, and you want to break the form up into easier-to-digest sections, be sure to check out how to create a multi-part form in WordPress.
- We also have more tips on creating a refer-a-friend form and adding incentives.
- If an employee leaves, you can easily get their feedback by asking these exit survey questions.
Ready to make your application form? Get started with the most powerful WordPress forms plugin today. WPForms Pro comes with a free job application form template.
And don’t forget, if you like this article, then please follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Hi, I have a question, is the job application form for free as well or do I have to pay for it ?
Hi Deya, thanks for your question!
All the Additional templates (those that you can find under “Additional Templates“) are only available with the Pro license level or higher as the Bonus Form Templates.
I hope this helps.
Have a good one 🙂
How do you delete a field that you placed in error before posting? I do not see any ‘delete’ buttons.
Hi Teri!
Normally there is a Trash icon when you hover over the fields. If you don’t have that icon in your form, there is most probably an HTML conflict caused by custom code you have used somewhere in the form.
If you have a WPForms license, you have access to our email support, so please submit a support ticket.
Otherwise, we provide limited complimentary support in the WPForms Lite WordPress.org support forum.
I hope this helps.
Have a good one 🙂
Pls how we I show processing button then approved after i approved it on is acc page after submission
Hi there!
I’m not sure I understand your question properly. However, you can set up a Confirmation event (what will happen after you click on the Submit button) under Settings > Confirmations in the form builder. For more details, please check out this article on our site.
I hope this helps.
Have a good one 🙂
So after that can companies search inside my site about the employer
Hi Haytham!
You can search through the form entries in your WordPress dashboard under WPForms > Entries. However, the companies’ members should be able to sign in to your site dashboard to do this.
I hope this helps.
Have a good one 🙂
Hi, I like to give the possibility for my users to fill they own cv on my websiet (fronteind) via wpforms and it shoul be create automatcally a new page with the filled information after cliking on store.
Is this also possible?
Thank you in advance.
Hey Rachid, That sounds like a cool feature to have! I am afraid it is not available at the moment. We will keep it on our radar for our future road map.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Do we have option of application status e.g. pending / approved / rejected, which can be modified by Admin and viewable by user.
Hey there! I am afraid this is not available at the moment, thanks for the suggestion though, and we’ll keep it on our radar as we plan out our roadmap in the future.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Is this done yet? This would be very helpful…
Hey Bonnie – Our developers are working to have this feature ready in the plugin, and I’ll add your vote into our feature request tracker.
Hello, maybe I missed it but when the applicant fills out a form and it hits my email is there an option to print it as PDF?
Hey Cesar – I am afraid, currently we don’t have an option to automatically convert the form submissions to PDF. We will keep that on our radar for the future. For now, if you need, you can print the individual form entries to PDF manually.
Hope that helps!
Can the submitted applications be send directly to an email address or do they need to be viewed in the backend?
Hey Marlena – Great question!
Yes, the submitted applications can be sent to the recipients that are assigned in the ‘Send to Email Address’ of the form notification settings. I’d recommend you to go through this tutorial which will be helpful!
These submissions/ entries can also be viewed in the WordPress admin dashboard of WPForms >> Entries page. For more information on Entry Management, please see this guide
I hope this helps! If you have any other questions, please let us know 🙂
Seriously, i don’t like this feature when I submit the form and the form disappear and shows thanks message. how can we get rid of this?
Hey Aqib – How exactly do you need it to behave? Do you mean you want to show the form again after submitting the form? If so, you can set up a confirmation redirect and in the redirect URL field, please give the URL of the page where form is placed. This way, when a user fills the form, the page will refresh again and form will be shown again.
I hope this helps!
Does the form have a way to submit confidential reference letters? For example, can applicants submit a referees’ email address, then it sends a link to the referee, who can click to submit a letter which will be included in the applicants file. Anything like that?
Hi Henry – I am afraid. Currently, there is no such feature available. We will keep this on our radar on our roadmap for the future.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Can an applicant save their progress, and return later to complete the application?
Hey Shawn- Currently, we do not have an inbuilt feature to save and continue. However, as a workaround, you can prefer sending a link to the applicant/user/form submitter to complete the form. Here is a developer guide on this.
I hope this helps! Thanks, and have a good one! 🙂
Hi. Can I set a fee for applicants to apply for the job??
Hey Basit- Great Question!
If you’d like to add an individual payment amount, you can use the Single Item field. To allow users to select from a list of items, you can use the Multiple Items field and/or the Dropdown Items field. To enable more than one selection, you can add the Checkbox Items field. You can also display the sum of the prices of the selected item using the Total field.
We have payment integrations available in WPForms. For users to make payment via credit card within the form, you can use the Stripe addon or the Authorize.Net addon (available with Elite License only). For payment via PayPal, you can use the PayPal Standard addon.
If you’d like to, you can also enable both payment modes within the same form. We have a detailed tutorial here
The Stripe and PayPal addons are available with the Pro license level and higher, and the Authorize.Net addon is available with the Elite license level.
Hope this helps! 🙂
Can I export applications as csv?
Hey Lorraine, Yes, you can absolutely export entries to CSV or Excel (available with any paid license). Here’s our tutorial on how to do that.
I hope this helps!
Can forms be encrypted and sent or saved securely if they have private and confidential information such as SSN#, driver license,?
Hey Ken, I am sorry but we do not have an encryption feature built into our plugin. I have gone ahead and added your vote to the feature request.
You can consider using our WP Mail SMTP plugin () to securely send email on your site. SMTP mailer options provide you with different security levels (SSL, TLS, etc). This way you can even include user details in the emails.
Thanks!
Hi,
Is is possible to create multiple application forms?
Since we have multiple vacancies with various specific information requests of the applicant.
Thanks in advance!
Hi Maarten,
Yes, you can absolutely any number of forms based on your requirements!
Thanks! 🙂
Will the info be stored as a database on wordpress? and then i can select by filtering the results by skill set? we want the form to collect the data for creating an in house pool of Casual workers.
Hey there – The paid version of WPForms allows you to store the data in the database. Additionally, to filter the entries, you can take a look at our documentation here.