Greenhouse application form on WordPress

With a Job Board API key, candidates apply on your job pages and arrive in Greenhouse as applications on that job.

Turn on on-site applications

1. Add a Job Board API key. You create it yourself in Greenhouse; no partner approval is needed.
2. Leave Greenhouse → Settings → Applications on Automatic, or choose On-site application form. Both need the key; without one, applicants are sent to Greenhouse. Choose Send applicants to Greenhouse to keep the button even with a key saved.

The form replaces the Apply on Greenhouse button on every job page. Each job’s JobPosting markup then includes directApply: true, which tells Google that candidates can apply on the page.

What the Greenhouse application form asks

The form is built from the questions Greenhouse returns for each job, so different jobs can ask different questions. It shows them in this order:

1. First name, Last name, Email, Phone. The first three are always required. Phone is required when the job requires it in Greenhouse.
2. The job’s questions, in Greenhouse’s order. These include Resume/CV and Cover Letter, each a file upload or pasted text (a required one is satisfied by either), and custom questions such as a LinkedIn profile or screening questions.
3. Location questions, when the job asks where the candidate is based.
4. Education and employment history, when the job asks for them. See below.
5. EEOC and demographic questions, when the job has them. See how these answers are handled.
6. The consent checkbox, when turned on under Greenhouse → Settings → Privacy. A job that requires GDPR consent in Greenhouse always shows it, whatever the setting. The box must be ticked to apply.

When a job carries Greenhouse’s AI disclaimer, it is shown above the form, with a Request to opt out of AI review link when the job has an opt-out address.

Greenhouse question types become these form inputs:

Greenhouse accepts an application even when a required answer is missing, so the plugin checks every required question on your site before anything is sent.

Every control has a label, and a required Resume/CV or Cover Letter choice between a file and pasted text is announced as required. Error messages are linked to their fields, which are marked invalid. After a failed submit, focus moves to the first field to fix, or to the message; after a sent application, to the thank-you message.

Questions are cached for an hour. After you change a job’s questions in Greenhouse, use Clear cache under Greenhouse → Settings → Tools to show the change straight away.

Education and employment history

A job that asks for education or employment history in Greenhouse gets that section on the form, marked required or optional as the job says.

• Education: School, Degree, Discipline, then a start and an end month and year. School, degree and discipline are required once an entry is started. Dates are optional, but month and year go together: half a date asks “Choose the month too, or clear the year.” (or the reverse).
• Employment: Company, Title, a start month and year, I currently work here, then an end month and year. The end date is required unless I currently work here is ticked, which hides it.

Applicants can add up to 5 entries per section with Add another and take one out with Remove. Without JavaScript each section takes one entry. A required section needs at least one; blank entries in an optional section are skipped. Years start 60 years ago. Start years stop at this year, and a start month later than this month is refused; end years reach 6 years ahead, for an expected graduation. An end date before the start date is refused.

The degree and discipline lists come from your Greenhouse account and are cached for a day. School suggestions appear as the applicant types, from the second character. A school typed without picking a suggestion is matched when the form is sent: an exact name, or the only match, is used. Anything else asks the applicant to “Pick your school from the list of suggestions.” and offers the matches.

If the degree and discipline lists cannot be loaded, the education section is left out and tried again after 5 minutes. A job that requires education then shows the Apply on Greenhouse button instead of the form.

The suggestions come from GET /wp-json/ghjb/v1/education/schools?term=, which answers only while your site takes applications on-site. Each visitor’s IP address, or IPv6 /64 network, can send 30 searches a minute on to Greenhouse; answers already cached don’t count.

EEOC and demographic answers

EEOC questions (gender, race, veteran status, disability status) are always optional. Demographic questions follow the job’s settings in Greenhouse. When the job asks for consent to demographic data, a Demographic data consent checkbox comes first: the answers are sent only when it is ticked, and required questions become required only then.

These answers go to Greenhouse with the application and are never stored on your site: not in the Submissions log, the application emails or WordPress’s personal data export.

File uploads

File fields accept PDF, DOC, DOCX, TXT, RTF and ODT files up to 5 MB. Your server’s PHP upload limit applies on top, so check upload_max_filesize if large files fail.

Uploaded files sit in a private temporary folder, wp-content/uploads/ghjb-tmp, under a random name while the application is sent, and are deleted straight after. The original file name still goes to Greenhouse. The folder denies web access on Apache (Require all denied). A file an interrupted request leaves behind is removed by the next upload once it is an hour old. Files never enter your Media Library.

What happens when someone applies

The form submits in the background and shows the result without reloading the page. Without JavaScript it submits as a normal form, and the page opens at the form’s message. A sent application redirects to the same page with ?ghjb_applied=<job ID>, which shows the thank-you message, so reloading never sends it twice. A failed one comes back with the typed answers kept; files need attaching again.

Before anything is sent to Greenhouse, the plugin checks these, in order. The applicant sees the message shown when a check fails:

Behind a proxy, set the real visitor address with the ghjb_client_ip filter, or all applicants share one allowance.

The field messages include “First name is required.”, “Resume/CV is required — attach a file or paste the text.”, “Please enter a valid email address.”, “Unsupported file type. Allowed types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf, odt.” and “The file is too large. Maximum size is 5 MB.”

Then the application goes to Greenhouse, and the applicant sees one of these outcomes:

Once Greenhouse accepts it, the job’s Applications count goes up by one, and the application emails go out if you turned them on. The hiring team email holds the job, the applicant’s name, email and phone, and a note that the resume and answers are in Greenhouse.

When a visitor arrives through a Greenhouse tracking link (one with ?gh_src=), the plugin remembers the source for 30 days and sends it with the application, so Greenhouse credits the right source.

When the API key stops working

The plugin uses the key for one thing only: sending an application. Job lists, job pages and each job’s questions come from your public job board and never use it.

If Greenhouse rejects the key, for example after it is deleted in Greenhouse, the form stays up but applications fail, and applicants see “Applications are temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.” An admin notice names the problem and the fix: create a new Job Board API key and save it under Greenhouse → Settings.

When a job shows the Apply on Greenhouse button

A job shows the Apply on Greenhouse button instead of the form when:

• Applications is set to Send applicants to Greenhouse, or no API key is saved;
• the job’s questions cannot be loaded, for example while Greenhouse is unreachable. The plugin tries again after a minute;
• the job requires education history and the degree and discipline lists cannot be loaded.

The button links to the job on your Greenhouse job board. If that address points back at your own site, as it does when the Greenhouse board is embedded on your careers page, the button links to Greenhouse’s hosted application page instead: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/embed/job_app?for=<board token>&token=<job ID> (job-boards.eu.greenhouse.io for a board in Greenhouse’s EU data centre).

The Submissions log

Greenhouse → Submissions lists the last 100 application attempts, newest first, while Log submissions is on under Greenhouse → Settings → Features. It is on by default. Each entry shows:

• the time, the job and its Greenhouse ID;
• the applicant’s name and email;
• Delivered, Failed or Email failed;
• a message: on a failure, the error in plain words and, when Greenhouse answered, its HTTP status and reply;
• the applicant’s IP address, shortened.

Greenhouse returns no candidate ID when it accepts an application, so entries do not link to the candidate in Greenhouse. Find them there by name or email.

Answers and files are never stored on your site; they go only to Greenhouse. You can filter the list by Delivered or Failed. Attempts the honeypot, the captcha or the rate limit blocked are only counted, not listed. Clear log empties it.

Entries are included in WordPress’s Tools → Export Personal Data and Tools → Erase Personal Data, matched by the applicant’s email.

If the WP Logs plugin is active, each attempt is also written to its log, without the applicant’s name or email.

Developer hooks

For the education and employment sections:

Example: post to a Slack channel whenever Greenhouse accepts an application.

add_action( 'ghjb_application_submitted', function ( $job_id, $job ) {
	wp_remote_post(
		'https://hooks.slack.com/services/XXXX/XXXX/XXXX',
		array(
			'headers' => array( 'Content-Type' => 'application/json' ),
			'body'    => wp_json_encode( array( 'text' => 'New application: ' . $job['title'] ) ),
		)
	);
}, 10, 2 );