Doing a jobbaord with Joomla! and Flexicontent part 2

This article is a basic translation of french to english (it's an old article, sorry for that), all screens are little old but all is writting here is ok for Flexicontent 3 series

Through this article I will try, with my meager skills, to create a functional specification of a CVthèque in order to realize it then with a CCK.

Come on, it's the big departure towards the unknown. We'll try to cross the Middle-earth* without getting too depressed and being tempted to buy this forbidden component*.

Draw me a Jobboard !

What does it do already? It is a job offer and CV manager, it must manage two main types of information, job offers, applications related (or not) to these job offers.
It's a good start... but it's not very advanced... So I'm going to try to improve this definition with a more graphical vision by proposing a function diagram.
I can already see the dev professionals coming... "but this is not specs !!!". Stop throwing stones (they are obtuse these developers).

CVtheque

Decrypting this scheme:

1. Offer manager :

Post offers
Search for offers

2. Application manager :

Apply for a job with a resume and cover letter
Contact an employer
Have a personalized space

3. The free CV deposit which will allow you to propose your services without any link with an offer

4. An HR part:

Insertion of offers
Modification of an offer in progress
Display and manage applications (linked or not to an offer)
Contact candidates
Search in the CVs

Now that the sketch is done, we have to start thinking about the more precise needs of each part

Good straw house, wood house or brick house?

While some people seem to think this is not a good idea, I like to start with the user need, what will he grasp, what will he see, what functions will I be able to offer him? It's always good to stay close to the user and the site administrator. I love swatting a mosquito with a bazooka but that's not the subject of this series of articles.

For the Job Offer part

I'll save you the description of all the fields one by one, otherwise you'll have the impression that I'm pushing open doors (and that hurts). But rather explain the interest of some fields in the idea of having an interesting research and management tool. A CCK allows you to structure the content entry and their layout but not only...

For example, the following fields can be used for filtering and/or searching

The duration of the position: it is so obvious to filter by this criterion that the risk is to forget it
The type of position: technician, hostess... here too, it is the ABC of job search. It is still necessary to intelligently enter this data
Salary: this field can have several forms, drop-down list, slider... in the form of a value scale (between so much and so much)
Experience and languages: interesting for the filtering of both the candidate and the recruiter
License : for some positions it is useful, others not, so we can imagine a filtering of the offers by this criterion (yes/no or A/B/C ...)
The name of the employer: in the case of a space with several different employers ... with a contact system via a pre-filled form
The address of the job : will allow to geolocalize the offers and to make research.
Remain the junk of the implementation of a system of links between job offer and application.

Application part

From a job offer, the candidate should be able to apply by sending his application. We will have 2 cases:

1. With a user account, which will allow to have a special candidate management panel
2. Without a user account, and we will have to imagine a system to be able to recontact him.

We could be satisfied with 2 or 3 fields (name, first name, email) with sending the pdf CV and basta but it would then be difficult to filter the applications finely because each candidate is free to structure his CV as he likes.
The interest is rather to structure the information entry in addition to the deposit of a file: the identical frame facilitates the consultation and each field could be used as criterion of filtering or research.

Here again, we agree that there is no real problem in the necessary fields, except for a "Desired sector" field which will only be displayed during a free application and which will allow the recruiter to do some research.

For the contact, we will need a form in the application page that will allow us to simply contact a candidate.

For the contact, we will need a form in the application page that will allow us to simply contact a candidate

Let's be crazy (we're in an article for the moment so we can dream): if we are far-sighted (masochistic?) we'll even plan a candidate management dashboard. It will allow you to list your current applications, to contact an employer and to search for a job...
Nothing too bad (I hope so)

HR part

The interest of a CCK is also to do without backend access to manage its content! It is useless to be able to access all the functions of a Joomla! to manage its offers and it is much more pleasant to remain in its graphic environment.

And that I love to provide a user experience without having too many things that parasitize the user (it's annoying a fly around you eh?!)
I propose to imagine a menu with LCD management:

The HR will be able to add and modify a classic offer without searching in a meander of functions and tools. But we could create comment and follow-up fields only accessible to him. Practical, isn't it?
There will remain the search part which, with the fields defined above, will allow to make multi-criteria without worries.

And that's it, the base is set! We can apply it on a CCK worthy of the name to build a CV library worthy of the name.
In the next issue I will show you how to do all this with FLEXIContent.

Feel free to comment on this document to share or improve it.
*For those who didn't follow, read the first article ;-)

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)