Vakanssi is a complete applicant tracking system (ATS) for WordPress: branded job listings with Google-for-Jobs\nstructured data, a native application form, an applications inbox with a configurable drag-and-drop\npipeline board, templated emails, and tools for handling candidate data (export, erasure and\nscheduled retention), all on your own server, with no per-seat SaaS fees.<\/p>\n\n
A complete hiring workflow:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n Vakanssi does not contact any external service on its own. Everything it stores stays on\nyour server. One optional integration talks to a third party, and only after you switch it\non and enter your own credentials:<\/p>\n\n Cloudflare Turnstile<\/strong> (optional spam protection for the public application form)<\/p>\n\n Turnstile is off by default. It activates only once you enter a Turnstile site key and\nsecret under Hiring \u2192 Settings \u2192 Application form. While it is enabled:<\/p>\n\n No application content (no name, email, CV, or answers) is sent to Cloudflare. Turning the\nsetting off stops all contact with the service.<\/p>\n\n Service: https:\/\/www.cloudflare.com\/products\/turnstile\/\nTerms of service: https:\/\/www.cloudflare.com\/terms\/\nPrivacy policy: https:\/\/www.cloudflare.com\/privacypolicy\/<\/p>\n\n\n No. Uninstalling removes roles, capabilities, and plugin settings, but your hiring data is kept\nunless you explicitly enable Hiring \u2192 Settings \u2192 General \u2192 Delete all data on uninstall<\/strong>.\nWhile another copy of Vakanssi is still installed (for example in a second plugin folder),\ndeleting a copy removes nothing, so the copy you keep runs with its settings and data.<\/p><\/dd>\n Yes, with defence in depth. Candidate files are stored in a protected Anyone you grant a hiring role to. Vakanssi ships three roles (Recruiter, Hiring Manager, and HR \/ Compliance)\nplus Administrator, and any user with the \"view applications\" capability can see every<\/strong> candidate\nand download every<\/strong> CV in the pipeline. In other words, Vakanssi does not restrict staff to only\nthe jobs or candidates assigned to them: it assumes your hiring team is trusted, which is the right\ndefault for most small teams. Only grant these roles to people who should see all applicants.<\/p><\/dd>\n Email security@vakanssi.com<\/strong> rather than posting in the support forum, so a fix can ship before\nthe details are public. Please include the Vakanssi version, your WordPress and PHP versions, and\nsteps to reproduce. You will get an acknowledgement within three business days and an initial\nassessment within a week, and you will be credited in the changelog for the release that fixes it\nunless you would rather not be. Only the most recent release receives security fixes, so updating\nis always part of the answer.<\/p><\/dd>\n When you run Tools \u2192 Export Personal Data<\/strong> for a candidate's email, Vakanssi includes their\nprofile (name, email, phone, location), every application (position, stage, status, date, and whether\nconsent was given), the cover letter, their LinkedIn profile, each uploaded CV\/attachment (the file itself, with its\nfilename and upload date), the submission context stored with the application (the page the application was sent from), the\nrecruiter notes and interview notes written about them, their interviews, and the emails Vakanssi\nsent them. Other details stored with an application or the candidate are included too, under\n\"Additional application data\". The export deliberately does not<\/strong> name the staff member who wrote a note, gave a\nrating, or conducted an interview. That is a third party's personal data, not the candidate's.<\/p>\n\n The matching Erase Personal Data<\/strong> tool removes all of it, including the CV files on disk. Export\nand erasure share one list of the tables that hold notes, interviews and emails about a candidate,\nso the two stay in step.<\/p><\/dd>\n Yes, activated per site or network-wide. Each site keeps its own jobs, candidates, CVs and\nsettings (data is never shared between sites), and each site chooses independently whether\ndeleting the plugin also deletes its hiring data. There is no network-level configuration screen; settings are per site.<\/p>\n\n Network activation is the recommended setup: deleting a site then removes that site's Vakanssi\ndata with it, and if some of its CVs cannot be deleted, Vakanssi keeps the list of those files.\nWith per-site activation, a site deleted where Vakanssi is not active keeps its Vakanssi tables,\nand its CVs when they are in a custom storage folder. Since 1.3.0 a super admin sees this data in\nSite Health and under Hiring \u2192 Tools \u2192 Data<\/strong>, and removes it there after a confirmation. When\nVakanssi cannot prove a site's CV files are gone (for example a folder it cannot read), it keeps\nthat site's file list and says why. A single site turned into a network keeps finding the CVs it\nstored before, and Site Health names the folder to move them from.<\/p><\/dd>\n Yes. Nginx ignores Yes, and you do not have to fall back to a shortcode. The block editor gets a Job Listings<\/strong>\nblock. Elementor<\/strong> gets three native widgets (the listing, the application form, and the job\ndetails) grouped under a Vakanssi section in the panel, and they work with the free Elementor; if\nyou run Elementor Pro, your Theme Builder archive and single templates for jobs are used instead of\nours. Divi<\/strong> gets a Jobs module. Shortcodes ( Themes need nothing special. Block themes on WordPress 6.7 and later get editable \"Jobs archive\" (while the archive page is on)\nand \"Single job\" templates in the Site Editor, built from your own header and footer; classic themes get the built-in archive. The\ncandidate-facing pages are styled so they survive a theme's own CSS reset, so the listing and the\napply button look the same whichever theme you run.<\/p><\/dd>\n Yes. Under Hiring \u2192 Settings \u2192 Jobs & Careers \u2192 Appearance<\/strong> you can turn off Vakanssi's front-end stylesheet\nentirely, if your theme styles the markup. For your own styling, use WordPress's built-in editor at\nAppearance \u2192 Customize \u2192 Additional CSS<\/strong>, which adds no extra request. Vakanssi keeps its own\nselectors deliberately low-weight and its class names stable. Match their weight, such as\n .vakanssi-apply-form .vakanssi-apply-button for the application form's Submit button or\n .vakanssi-apply .vakanssi-apply-button for a job's Apply link, and style The same Two things are worth doing on a live hiring site, and both are standard WordPress production\nhygiene rather than Vakanssi requirements. First, switch WordPress to a real cron trigger:\nout of the box, WordPress runs scheduled tasks only when someone visits your site, so on a\nquiet careers site scheduled work can run late. Vakanssi relies on it to purge candidate data once\nits retention period is up. Add Yes: Hiring \u2192 Settings \u2192 Jobs & Careers \u2192 Job URLs<\/strong> \u2192 \"Archive page\". Single job pages stay\nlive under your job URL base (e.g. \/jobs\/job-title\/); the archive URL becomes available for your own\npage, such as a Careers page using the [vakanssi_jobs] shortcode.<\/p><\/dd>\n Every save carries the state the screen was showing when you started editing. If someone else\nchanged that candidate first, the save is refused and you are shown what changed instead of\nquietly losing one of the two edits. This runs over ordinary REST requests, so it needs nothing\nspecial on your server and works on any host that runs WordPress normally.<\/p><\/dd>\n Yes. Vakanssi Pro is a separate plugin, coming soon, for teams that need more. Everything in this plugin stays free and fully working. Get notified when it launches at https:\/\/vakanssi.com\/#notify<\/p><\/dd>\n\n<\/dl>\n\n\n\n
vakanssi_job<\/code> post type, a branded careers archive (at \/jobs\/<\/code> by default, or on\nyour own careers page) and [vakanssi_jobs]<\/code> shortcode, and valid Google-for-Jobs JobPosting<\/code> structured data that is\nwithheld automatically when a job is not eligible (expired, no location, no apply path, \u2026).<\/li>\n.ics<\/code> invite that Google, Outlook and Apple render as an actionable event, with no OAuth and\nno connected account. Reschedule, cancel, and keep internal notes that reach your interviewers'\ncalendars and never the candidate's.<\/li>\nvakanssi\/v1<\/code> REST API with per-route\npermission checks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\nExternal services<\/h3>\n\n
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vakanssi<\/code> folder to \/wp-content\/plugins\/<\/code>, or install through the Plugins screen.<\/li>\n\n
Does removing the plugin delete my candidate data?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
Are uploaded CVs protected from direct download?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
vakanssi<\/code> folder in\nyour uploads directory, under random 128-bit file names, with an Apache deny rule, index guards and a\ngenerated Nginx rule. Vakanssi then verifies over HTTP<\/strong> that the folder is not directly reachable,\nand shows an admin warning (with the exact Nginx rule to add) if it is. The plugin itself only serves\nCVs through an authenticated, permission-checked download link.\nTo keep them outside your public site entirely, define VAKANSSI_STORAGE_DIR<\/code> as an absolute path in wp-config.php<\/code>; moving your existing CVs is covered at https:\/\/docs.vakanssi.com\/admin\/move-cv-storage\/<\/p><\/dd>\nWho on my team can see candidate applications and CVs?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
How do I report a security issue?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
What personal data is included in a GDPR data-export request?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
Does it work on WordPress multisite?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
Does it work on Nginx?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
.htaccess<\/code>, so add the generated location<\/code> block to your server config. The\nplugin's screens show the rule, and Site Health flags the folder, when it is reachable.<\/p><\/dd>\nDoes it work with my theme and page builder?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
[vakanssi_jobs]<\/code>, [vakanssi_job_apply]<\/code>,\n [vakanssi_job_details]) still work anywhere else, including builders with no dedicated\nintegration.<\/p>\n\nCan I restyle the careers\/job pages, and will custom CSS slow my site down?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
:hover<\/code>, :focus<\/code> and\n :active as well, since Vakanssi sets those too. On most pages that is enough without !important<\/code>.<\/p>\n\nvakanssi-<\/code> class names are on the careers and job pages under block themes and classic\nthemes alike, so one rule covers both. On a block theme your theme keeps control of the page width\nand spacing and Vakanssi adds no styling of its own to those wrappers, so your rules apply exactly\nas you write them.<\/p><\/dd>\nDo I need any special server setup for a production site?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
define( 'DISABLE_WP_CRON', true );<\/code> to wp-config.php<\/code> and trigger\n wp-cron.php every few minutes; most managed hosts offer this as a checkbox. Second, if your\nhost offers a persistent object cache (Redis or Memcached), enable it: Vakanssi uses\ntransients for its dashboard counters, and an object cache keeps those out of the database\nunder heavy traffic. Apply-form rate limits always use the database, so they hold either way. Nothing breaks without either step.<\/p><\/dd>\nCan I disable the \/jobs\/ archive page?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
What stops two recruiters overwriting each other on the board?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
Is there a Pro version?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
1.3.0<\/h4>\n\n
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1.2.6<\/h4>\n\n
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1.2.5<\/h4>\n\n
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