What is Online Application Collection & Processing
Ever increasing growth of the Internet has influenced business operations in many ways, including the hiring process. Online Application Collection and Processing is a comprehensive solution to collect, manage and review applications submitted by the prospective applicants/candidates online. It is an online system that your applicants and entire team and management will love using. The management can create a simple, easy application experience, eliminate time-consuming processes and streamline administration and review. Finally you can pick and choose only what is suitable to your requirements.
Collection of Applications Online vs Paper Based
Revolutionary shift from desktop to internet applications has redefined business operations at a number of levels, including the hiring process. Online applications, also called e-recruitment, give employers an alternative to traditional paper applications. E-recruitment helps to cut human resource expenses by saving mailing costs and providing a matchless utility that newspaper ads cannot promise. In turn, online applications also speed up the hiring process. Not only this, but electronic applications provide a variety of options to the candidates as well: they can update, edit and restructure their documents using Job Manager in WordPress dashboard. On the other hand, paper applications do not offer applicants the ability to update qualifications once an application is submitted. Employers cannot allow an applicant to edit his/her application after submission.
Apply Online Plugin for WordPress Websites
Now let’s get down to business and take a look at what seems to be the best plugin when it comes to applying online. Though we can name a few plugins working out there, but the one that boasts all the features one is looking for is Apply Online – why Apply Online? Truth be known, this plugin is best job board WordPress plugin which complements your website by making your recruitment or advertisement experience a piece of cake. To put it simply, this is the best compatible option for your WordPress website, and that too, leaving the GUI of your site as it is.
Installation
On the left hand side of the WordPress, you can see dashboard where different options are giving, one of them is ‘Plugins’. Just hover your mouse pointer in ‘Plugins’ and it will extend a couple of options including ‘Add New’ (as showing in the image below), just click on ‘Add New’ and you will find a field named ‘Keyword’ on the right hand side of the page as shown in the image below. Just type in ‘Apply Online’ here in this field, you will find Apply Online plugin ready to be installed just next to dashboard. Click ‘Install Now’ button and then click ‘Activate’ button, now you can see Apply Online installed in ‘Installed Plugins’ section. Easier yet, just follow the steps in the images below and get your installation done.
Creating and Managing Your Ads with Application Forms
Moving forward, now it’s time to integrate this plugin with your website. You just need to locate the menu ‘All Ads’ in admin panel and create a few ads.
Now open link on your website with ads slug i.e. yourdomain.com/ads, and you can see all your ads at this url.
This is how your ads are going to look when candidates open it.
Alternate Way To Show Ads on Your Website.
Looking for more features to your ads? Apply Online has more to offer – AOL shortcode. From WordPress admin panel, add a page i. e. Careers or New Admissions. Place [aol] shortcode into the editor, sit back and enjoy our extra features like filtering categories.
You can see the eye-catching difference in layout with more options. We recommend you to display ads using [aol] shortcode.
What You Can do With Apply Online Plugin
After making a research on the requirements of job industry, employing carefully handpicked features, Apply Online stands one of the top plugins to use on your WordPress website. It turns your workplace into paper-free environment. It offers hiring online through its seamless ads manipulation and puts HR at ease in order to shortlist and compile documents. All the managers can add their remarks on a single application they receive. Users may also use this to advertise online admissions and receive filled-out applications, another equally lucrative aspect of this plugin.
Management receives an email once an application is filled by candidates. Apply Online brings in another facility of auto-reply to the candidates, though it is part of ApplyOnline’s value-added features. The good news is that they are going to include it in their complementary package that you install in the first place, totally free.
Add-Ons
The sky is the limit! The options are endless. ApplyOnline’s paid add-ons are worth it. Application Tracker, a next level Application Tracking System where applicants can signup and login. The best quality that employers and candidates appreciate alike is that applicants can save applications as draft, edit it for multiple times, and pause the filling process whenever they wish to complete it later and submit it finally. It provides the applicants a dashboard to view history and track the status of their application e.g. received, pending, shortlisted, scheduled etc.
One cannot help appreciating Application Emailer. Employers receive all the documents related to applications as a one unit through this add-on, for instance, CV, photo, application form are received a one document, making it easy to review.
If you do need to turn all the documents into hard copy anyway or want to take a compact look on documentations, Application(s) Exporter is at your service. A couple of clicks will enable you to export individual application as PDF & all applications of an ad as CSV.
How could Spider Teams forget about the security concerns? Apply Online Captcha, an effective and comprehensive security solution that adds Captcha challenge at the bottom of the application form to keep bots at bay.
Obviously, the managers may find it complicated to manage all the ads, and this is where Ads Filters come in. It filters your ads archive page as you please.
Last but not least, to keep track of status of applications, Application Statuses provides Custom Statuses for the received applications which helps the managers/employers to take a look at the applications and add remarks in accordance with their suitability, for example, how many applications are shortlisted, rejected, put on hold or reviewed.
Still Spider Teams is working diligently to make sure the availability of further aspect to its current and prospective users.
Is there a way to capture sensitive information i.e. Drive License Number, SSN, W-9 form?
Yes, You should create these input fields in the Application Form Builder to collect this information from the applicant.
I must commend you guys for this great plugins, Please the upload path isn’t working after publishing it, what should i do so applicants may upload their images? Thank you
Make sure you provide a correct path in ApplyOnline/Settings/General section in WordPress admin panel.
I can’t get the form to install on a page. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong.
Hi Mars,
The instructions given in this tutorial are very clear. You should read again & let us know what is problematic for you.
Best
Hi, i have followed instruction as clear as it is, but i am not so sure were i am going wrong that my form is not showing/appearing
You should contact our technical support team through the Contact Us section on our website.
how do you adjust the size of the fields on the forms?
Sizes can be adjusted with custom CSS.
Could you give an example of this?
Where does the custom CSS go?
Hi Nick,
You can add custom CSS to the website using Theme Customzier by visitin Appearance/Customize section in your WordPress admin panel.
Great tutorial there. How do you create custom layouts with DIVI for the job’s page?
Hi Erick,
Thank you for liking this tutorial. Divi as such play no role in the design of the job board. To get a similar layout of ads as it is on our website, you should have installed ApplyOnline plugin and use [aol] shortcode in a page editor. Just create a new web page, add a text or shortcode element and write [aol] sortcode there. Make sure you have added few ads to locations, types & other taxonomies when you created ads. Cheers!
Disclosure, I am pretty website illiterate and have been try to figure out this plugin. Is there a way to copy our existing live ad in Apply Online, and then adapt the copy to create another job ad? Or do I need to begin new with each ad? I can’t find a copy prompt anywhere.
Well, you can manually copy your existing ads to ApplyOnline ad system. After installation of ApplyOnline plugin, you should create a new ad in the All Ads section of your WordPress admin panel, copy text from the previous platform to this new ad, create an application form from the same screen. I hope it would be simple & straight forward for you. Good luck
Can I download the filled application form / can it send by mail after hitting the ‘Apply’ button in pdf/docx/xlsx?
You can take prints of the received application forms. For downloading & sending it by mail, you need to have a look at plugin extensions.
Hi there, just wondering if I can use the same job plugin for another kind of applications (for finance) to be submitted by my different retailers on the website?
Yes, we have provided Ad Types in the plugin to achieve this goal. You can create different sections on your website e.g. Admissions, IT Jobs & Finance Jobs & show appropriate ads. In admin panel all these types are treated separately.
This is a nice plugin.
I would use this plugin to record volunteers on my website. So once I have volunteers registered on my website, is there a way to send them emails, either to all the volunteers or selected volunteers (example, updates, news, etc) directly from the website ?
Well, shared hostings usually have limited quota to send emails from your website. Better you opt for a 3rd party mailing system to send emails in bulk to a list.
Hi there,
Can I use Apply Online (free version) as a job site where different hiring managers can register to submit jobs on regular basis?
If yes, what are the steps. Also, can this be monetized?
Yes, it can do this job as well.
Are you able to start an application, save information and come back later to finish?
Kirk, Application Tracking System extension can do this job easily. Here is the link: https://wpreloaded.com/shop/
Hi Everybody,
In ads detail page, the form submit not appear. I have only button submit and if I click it, I get an empty answer.
Thanks for help.
Hi Laurent,
If form doesn’t appear on ad detail page then make sure you created a form using Application Form Builder on ad editor page in WordPress admin panel. For more personalized support use Contact Us section to talk to our technical team.
Best
Looking for more help on getting this application set up is there a place to go for help?
Well this tutorial tells almost everything, if you still need help then visit Contact Us section of this website & write to us.
Hello, Thanks you for the good job on this plugin,
I don’t find the way to have a pagination ? Could hou please help me?
Hi Karim,
This feature is under development right now.
Dear Farhan,
ASAK,
I maintain a website for a Madrasa, due to COVID they want their admission process to be online.
Will your plugin be helpful?
They want to collect admission fee online, then process the form online.
Yes, online admission forms are collected professionally through this plugin. What payment gateway would you like to use for online admissions?
Hi getting error on Google Search console that drop-down of filter is not mobile friendly as they are nearby how to fix it need to add html break please help
Hi Priyesh Joshi,
Where would you like to add HTML break, can you point out after & before tags for the HTML break?
I am trying to come up with shortcodes so that I can display the most recent three ads from each different category in various sections on the website. I could really use a bit of help with this.
Hi Guys, I’ve installed the plug-in which was super easy and it works well except when you click on the job post the photo is massive and there is a narrow black toolbar at the top of the page.. I just want the photo to be the same size as before the post is clicked on and I want to remove the unsightly tool bar the. It will be perfect!
Hi Benjamin,
Our plugin have nothing to do with the design of the job detail page. Its your theme that provide design to the ApplyOnline ad detail page. If you want us to fix this please submit copy of your theme through Contact Us section on this website.
Best
Hi There.
I get the heading ‘Archives: All Ads’ on the all /ads/ page, is there a way to change this?
Hi Anton,
You need to fix your theme’s template file or use [[aol]] shortcode in a page to show ads archive.
Where is the data stored, I cannot find the fields in my Database, I must be blind, please help.
Hi Erik,
Data is saved in the post & postmeta tables.
Hi, How do we change the status of application from pending to shortlisted, please say.
You can do this from the received application page in the WP Admin Panel.
Hi, is there a way to create a custom template for the archive and the single posts ?
Yes, you can. Just go through the plugin tutorial.
Hi,
Is there a way to share new ads via a mailing list? e.g. can I make apply online communicate with mailchimp, or expand this function by purchasing an add-ons?
Thank you,
Marco
Hi Marco,
You should use Application Exporter add-on to get data downloaded into a CSV file, then you can upload that file to Mailchimp to import data into Mailchimp.
Hi, 2 questions:
is there a way to link the uploaded files so that the user who sent them can download them and / or verify that they are correct?
is it possible to send the application and its attachments to the user once submitted (e.g in the automatic response)?
thank you
Hi Gio,
Yes you can send application form data along with attachments to the applicant. You just need to get Emailer add-on from our shop: https://wpreloaded.com/shop
Is that possible to charge some money in this application form?
Have a look at PayPal Add-on to charge money on application forms.
hello Farhan , how can i see more column like, address, mobile, email in Applications list? please help me.
You should install Admin Column plugins from WordPress repository to show custom data on Applications Table.
Hi i want my clid ts to upload p12 file ext, i add this this format in edit form but it say error, does this plugin know this format file when uploadin these kind of files?
You may add a new file extension from ApplyOnline/Settings/General section your WordPress admin panel while the plugin is installed.
Hi
I added ther extension as you said but it says this error:Invalid file Certifikata_elektronike (1).p12. Allowed file types are: jpg,jpeg,doc,docx,pdf,odt,p12.,txt
eveb I addes this extension. Can you help me please?
Hi, is it possible to increase the file size upload limit? It seems to default to 3MB, and I can not change it.
Hi Craig Rahtz
You can set maximum limit to the web server’s max limit from ApplyOnline/Settings/General section in your WordPress admin panel. To increase web server’s limit, talk to your hosting provider.
Is there a way to edit all of the applications for each job globally? When I make changes to my Job Application template, the changes do not seem to show up for each job. Do I have to edit each of them individually?
Hi,
I Can’t see the option “Create an ad” on the options tab it got the “ads” option only.
kindly assist.
“Create an ad” option should be on the top left of the ads listing table.
I am using this AOL plugin. This plugin works nicely. As we are accepting, attachment through AOL, my question is how to attach CV to the email and also, hwo to add name, experience, etc fields in email body
Hi Sameer. You need to get ApplyOnline Emailer extension from our add-ons section.
I have created form and admin email recived mail but i user dont recive email.
can you help me out how can i send email to user
Hi Jukesh,
Email field in the application form builder has an option to mark it as email recipient. Make sure you marked it correctly.
Thanks
Hello, I am using this plugin for creating job, I have faceing issue in amdin email, admin recive email in html code, can you tell me why its hapening
The issue has been fixed in the version 2.5.6. Make sure you have installed latest version of the plugin.
Thanks