how-to-create-a-job-application-form-in-wordpress

How to Create a Job Application Form in WordPress [Template]

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, we’ll walk you through exactly how to create a job application form in WordPress.

Make Your Job Application Form Now

Video Tutorial on 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

The first thing you’ll need to do is install and activate the WPForms plugin. For detailed instructions, see this step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

WPForms is the best form builder for WordPress. Thanks to its 500+ ready-made templates including templates for business forms and job applications, WPForms also doubles as a great WordPress job application plugin.

WPForms

The WPForms Pro license comes preloaded with a job application form template with a file upload field. We’ll use this template to make the whole application form creation process easier.

Step 2: Select Job Application Form Template

After installing WPForms on your site, click on WPForms » Add New from your WordPress dashboard.

Adding a new form in WPForms

Give your form a name, then scroll down and type “job application” into the search field. WPForms includes 4 job application form templates:

You can customize any template to meet your needs. Choose the one that’s best suited to your business and click Use Template. For our example, we’ll use the Job Application Upload Form.

Choosing the Job Application Upload Form template

Next, we’ll customize our WordPress job application form.

Step 2: Customize Your Job Application Form

WPForms allows you to create an easy and streamlined job application process by allowing you to customize the form as you see fit.

The application for employment template already includes basic questions like name, phone number, and other contact information, but you can ask for more info if you need it.

The template also includes a file upload file where applicants can upload their resume, but you can also place a field asking for the work experience of each applicant.

Customizing the Job Application Upload Form template

Here are a few ideas of additional form fields you might want to add using the drag and drop form builder:

  • Position — Add a Multiple Choice, Checkboxes, or Single Line Text field to have people specify which position they’re applying for.
  • Start Date — Add a Date / Time field and let people enter when they can start.
  • Referral — Add a Multiple Choice, Checkboxes, or Single Line Text field asking people if they were referred by another employee, a family or friend, etc.

You can also ask for details like employment history, desired salary, names of previous supervisors, reason for leaving prior jobs, educational background, volunteer work, hobbies and interests, licenses and certifications, availability, and more.

Lastly, it’s important you customize the File Upload field to make sure potential candidates know where to upload their resumes or cover letters to their job application.

To do this, click on the File Upload field and do the following:

  • Add a description with instructions if needed.
  • Specify the types of file extensions you’ll allow people to upload.
  • Enter a maximum file size if you want to restrict the size to be smaller than the default of 128MB.
  • Change the default maximum file number from 1 if you want to allow for more files per field.
  • Enable the Required option if everyone applying must upload a file.

Requiring a resume file upload field on a job application form

Under the Advanced section, toggle on the option labeled Store file in WordPress Media Library for easy access to the files your applicants upload to their forms.

Storing file uploads in the WordPress Media Library

Want to have an upload button instead of the Modern style drag and drop file uploader? Choose the Classic style from the dropdown.

Changing the file upload style to Classic

When you’re done customizing your form, click Save.

Saving your form

Step 3: Enable Conditional Logic

Having a long job application form is not ideal. To fight form fatigue, create clutter free forms, and still gather the information you need from candidates, you should enable smart conditional logic on your WordPress form.

Let’s take a look at how to do this.

In our example, we’ll ask people filling out the job application form if they were referred by an existing employee. If they were, a box will appear asking for the employee’s name. Pretty cool, right?!

We’re going to use the existing Multiple Choice field from the Job Application Upload Form template. If you’re using another template or building your form from scratch, you can add a Multiple Choice field by dragging and dropping it from the left side of the form builder into the preview area.

Click on the Multiple Choice field to open its field options. Here you chance its label and choices.

Editing the field options for the Multiple Choice field in the Job Application Upload Form template

For our example, we aren’t making any changes. Instead, we’ll just add a Single Line Text field under the existing one in the template.

Adding a Single Line Text field to the Job Application Upload Form template

Then we’ll click on it change the label to “Who referred you?”

Editing the label for a Single Line Text field in a job application form

Next, head over to the Smart Logic tab and toggle on the Enable conditional logic setting.

Enabling conditional logic for a Single Line Text Field

Then change the dropdowns to read “Show this field if How did you find out about this position? is Current Employee.”

Creating a conditional logic rule for an employee referral field

Now, whenever someone filling out your WordPress job application form selects the multiple choice option “Current Employee” when answering the question “How did you find out about this position?” the Single Line Text field will appear so they can enter who referred them.

Check it out:

Conditional logic for an employee referral field in a job application form

The If Other field in the Job Application Upload Form template works the same way. It will only appear if the applicant chooses “Other” when answering “How did you find out about this position?”

When you’re done, click Save again.

Step 4: Configure Your Form Settings

To start, go to Settings » General.

Accessing a form's general settings

Here you can configure the following:

  • Form Name — Change the name of your form here if you’d like.
  • Form Description — Give your form a description.
  • Tags — Organize your site’s forms by applying tags to them.
  • Submit Button Text — Customize the copy on the submit button.
  • Submit Button Processing Text — Change the text that shows while your form is submitting.

Under the Advanced section, you can also:

  • Add CSS Classes — Apply custom CSS to your form or submit button.
  • Enable Prefill by URL — Automatically fill in some fields based on a custom URL.
  • Enable AJAX form submission — Enable AJAX settings with no page reload.
  • Disable storing entry information in WordPress — You can disable the storing of entry information and user details, such as IP addresses and user agents, in an effort to comply with GDPR requirements. Check out our step-by-step instructions on how to add a GDPR agreement field to your simple contact form.

Next, move down to the Spam Protection and Security settings.

Opening the form spam and security settings

Here you can:

  • Enable anti-spam protection — Stop contact form spam with the WPForms anti-spam token. The anti-spam feature is automatically turned on for all new forms.
  • Enable Akismet anti-spam protection — Connect your form to the Akismet plugin to prevent spam.
  • Enable country filter — Stop entries from specific countries.
  • Enable keyword filter — Disallow submissions that include certain words or phrases.

When you’re done, click Save.

Don’t forget that you can activate the Form Locker addon and add an expiry date to your form. This will let you close the form at a set date and time.

Step 5: Customize Your Job Application Form’s Notifications

Email notifications are a great way to send an email whenever an application is submitted on your WordPress website.

Accessing a form's notifications settings

In fact, unless you disable this feature, whenever someone submits a job application form on your site, you’ll get a notification about it.

If you use Smart Tags, you can also send a notification to the user when they apply online for one of your job openings, letting them know you received their application and will be in contact shortly. This assures people their application has gone through properly.

For help with this step, check out our documentation on how to set up form notifications in WordPress.

And if you want to keep branding across your emails consistent, you can check out this guide on adding a custom header to your email template.

An email notification with a custom header image

Step 6: Configure Your Form’s Confirmations

Form confirmations are messages that display to site visitors once they submit an online employment application on your website. They let people know that their application has gone through and offer you the chance to let them know what the next steps are.

WPForms has 3 confirmation types to choose from:

  1. Message — This is the default confirmation type in WPForms. When a site visitor submits a job application form, a simple message confirmation will appear letting them know their application was processed. Check out some great success messages to help boost user happiness.
  2. Show Page — This confirmation type will take site visitors to a specific web page on your site thanking them for applying. For help doing this, check out our tutorial on redirecting customers to a thank you page. In addition, be sure to check out our article on creating effective Thank You pages.
  3. Go to URL (Redirect) — This option is for when you want to send site visitors to a different website.

Let’s see how to set up a simple form confirmation in WPForms so you can customize the message site visitors will see when they apply for a position you are hiring for.

To start, click on the Confirmation tab in the Form Editor under Settings.

Next, select the type of confirmation type you’d like to create. For this example, we’ll select Message.

Customizing a confirmation message for a job application form

Then, customize the confirmation message to your liking and click Save.

For help with other confirmation types, see our documentation on setting up form confirmations.

So now you’re ready to add your job application form to your website.

Step 7: Add Your Job Application Form to Your Website

After you’ve created your form, you need to add it to your WordPress site. WPForms allows you to embed your forms in any location on your website, including your blog posts, pages, and even sidebar widgets.

So let’s take a look at the most common placement option: WordPress page or post embedding.

To begin, create a new page or post in the WordPress backend, or open an existing one in the editor.

After that, add a new block and select WPForms.

Adding a WPForms block to a page

The handy WPForms widget will appear inside of your block. Click on the WPForms dropdown and pick which one of the forms you’ve already created that you want to insert into your page. Select your Job Application Form.

Selecting a Job Application Form from the WPForms block dropdown

Then, publish your post or page so your job application form will appear on your website.

Publishing your Job Application form

If you want, you can also create your job application form by publishing it using a shortcode. You’ll find the shortcode in the WPForms area of your WordPress dashboard.

To view application form entries after they’ve been submitted, check out this complete guide to form entries. For example you can:

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:

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.

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Comments

    1. 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 🙂

  1. How do you delete a field that you placed in error before posting? I do not see any ‘delete’ buttons.

    1. 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 🙂

  2. Pls how we I show processing button then approved after i approved it on is acc page after submission

    1. 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 🙂

    1. 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 🙂

  3. 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.

    1. 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!

  4. Do we have option of application status e.g. pending / approved / rejected, which can be modified by Admin and viewable by user.

    1. 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!

      1. 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.

  5. 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?

  6. Can the submitted applications be send directly to an email address or do they need to be viewed in the backend?

    1. 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 🙂

  7. 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?

    1. 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!

  8. 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?

    1. 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!

    1. 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! 🙂

    1. 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! 🙂

  9. Can forms be encrypted and sent or saved securely if they have private and confidential information such as SSN#, driver license,?

    1. 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!

  10. 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!

  11. 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.

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