Careers Portal Add-on Guide for Larapen

Add a fully-featured careers section to your Larapen site. Post job openings, receive applications with resumes, and manage the entire hiring pipeline from the admin panel.

Use Cases

Company Careers Page

You run a company website on Larapen and need a professional careers section for hiring.

• Create job categories by department (Engineering, Marketing, Design, etc.).
• Post open positions with descriptions, requirements, benefits, and salary ranges.
• Set application deadlines or leave positions open until filled.
• Receive and review applications directly from the admin panel.

Agency with Multiple Clients

You manage multiple client sites and need to provide a job board feature on each.

• Install the add-on on each Larapen instance.
• Customize categories and position types per client.
• Enable CAPTCHA to prevent spam applications.
• Admin users receive email notifications for new applications.

Startup with Remote Team

You’re building a remote-first team and want to showcase your open positions.

• Mark positions as “Remote” for clear visibility on the front-end.
• Use experience level filters (Entry, Mid, Senior, Lead, Executive).
• Display salary ranges (optional, toggle per position).
• Applicants submit resumes (PDF/DOC/DOCX) and LinkedIn profiles alongside their applications.

Requirements

• Larapen CMS v1.0.0 or later
• PHP 8.3+
• MySQL 8.0+

Installation

Step 1: Upload the Add-on

In the admin panel, go to Admin → Extensions → Add-ons and click the Upload Add-on button. Select the add-on’s ZIP file: the system extracts it automatically and the add-on appears in the installed add-ons list.

Step 2: Activate the Add-on

Find Careers Portal in the list and click Activate. Its migrations, seeders (if any) and permissions are set up automatically.

Step 3: Configure

Navigate to Admin → Careers → Settings to configure job categories, application form fields, and recruiter notifications. See Configuration.

Purchase Code (License Key)

Careers Portal is sold as a separate product, so it has its own purchase code (license key), distinct from the purchase code of the main application and from the one of every other add-on. You are asked for it when you activate Careers Portal in Admin panel → Add-ons.

Our products are sold on three platforms. The way you receive a purchase code depends on where you bought the product.

1. bedigit.com Store (in-site purchase)

• As soon as the order’s payment status becomes Paid, a license key is generated automatically for every licensed item in the order (one key per purchased unit: buying 3 units gives 3 distinct keys).
• It is emailed to the address used on the order, either in a dedicated license email or inside the order confirmation email. Check your inbox and your spam / junk folder.
• The key stays available in your account under My Account → My Licenses. Keys are masked in the list; open the license detail page to reveal and copy the full key, see the domains it is activated on, and deactivate a domain to free an activation slot.
• The matching invoice is under My Account → My Orders.

2. Gumroad

• A Gumroad purchase produces two separate emails: the Gumroad receipt (sent by Gumroad, giving access to the files) and a license key email (sent by bedigit.com) that contains your purchase code.
• The license key email is generated as soon as Gumroad notifies us of the sale, so it normally arrives within seconds of the payment. Here too, check your inbox and your spam / junk folder.
• When the Gumroad product uses Gumroad’s own license-key feature, the same key also appears in your Gumroad receipt and under Library → your purchase on gumroad.com.
• Use the same email address on bedigit.com as on Gumroad: your keys are then linked to your account automatically and listed under My Account → My Licenses, even if you register after the purchase. You can also add a Gumroad key manually from My Account → My Gumroad Licenses.

3. Envato Market (CodeCanyon)

• Envato purchase codes are issued and delivered by Envato Market, never emailed by us, so there is nothing to look for in your spam folder: you retrieve the code from your Envato account.
• Log in to your Envato / CodeCanyon account, open the Downloads page, find the item, and choose License certificate & purchase code from the Download dropdown. The code is written in that certificate.
• An Envato purchase code looks like 12345678-90ab-cdef-1234-567890abcdef (8-4-4-4-12 characters). It never changes, and renewing item support does not issue a new one.
• Official Envato article: Where Is My Purchase Code?

Configuration

The add-on ships with a config/careers.php file providing sensible defaults. These can be overridden from the admin settings panel at Admin → Careers → Settings, which stores values in the settings table (group careers).

Config File Defaults

Admin: Positions

The Positions page (Careers → Positions) manages your job listings.

Positions List

A paginated table (15 per page) showing all positions with:

• Title: translatable job title
• Category: linked career category
• Employment type (Full Time, Part Time, Contract, Freelance, Internship)
• Status (Draft / Published)
• Applications count: number of received applications
• Published date and deadline

Filterable by category and status.

Create & Edit

The position form contains translatable fields (per active locale) and non-translatable fields:

Translatable Fields

Non-Translatable Fields

Admin: Applications

The Applications page (Careers → Applications) lists all received job applications.

Applications List

A paginated table showing:

• Applicant name (first + last name)
• Email
• Position applied for
• Status badge (color-coded)
• Applied on date

Filterable by position and status.

Application Detail

Click an application to view its full details:

• Contact information: name, email, phone
• Cover letter: full text
• Resume: download link (stored securely in local disk under careers/resumes/)
• LinkedIn profile: clickable URL
• Portfolio URL: clickable URL
• Internal notes: admin-only notes field
• IP address of submission

Status Workflow

Applications progress through a 7-stage pipeline. The admin can update the status and add internal notes at any stage.

Resume Management

Uploaded resumes are stored on the local disk (not publicly accessible) under careers/resumes/. Admins download resumes through an authenticated controller action that streams the file with the original filename.

• Allowed file types are configurable (default: PDF, DOC, DOCX).
• Maximum file size is configurable (default: 5 MB / 5120 KB).
• Resume files are automatically deleted when an application or its parent position is deleted.

Admin: Categories

Career categories (Careers → Categories) use the core Larapen unified categories table with categorizable_type = 'career'.

Category Fields

Admin: Settings

The settings page (Careers → Settings) is organized into three sections:

Display Options

• Positions Per Page: number of positions on the front-end listing (min: 4, max: 100).

Application Settings

• Allowed Resume Types: comma-separated list of accepted file extensions.
• Max Resume Size: maximum upload size in kilobytes (min: 512 KB, max: 50 MB).
• Admin Notifications: toggle email alerts for new applications.

CAPTCHA Protection

• Enable CAPTCHA for Applications: toggle CAPTCHA on the front-end application form.
• Requires a CAPTCHA provider to be configured in the core settings. A warning is shown if no provider is set up.

Front-end: Careers Listing

The careers listing page displays all open positions (published status, with a future or null deadline).

Page Features

• Category filter: sidebar or tab bar listing all active career categories with an “All Departments” option.
• Position cards: each card shows the job title, employment type, experience level, location, remote badge, salary range (if shown), and posting date.
• Pagination: controlled by the careers_per_page setting.
• SEO: page meta title and description are set via the SeoService.

Category Filtering

Clicking a category navigates to /{locale}/careers/category/{slug}, which filters positions to that category. The slug is resolved against the current locale with a fallback to the English translation.

Front-end: Position Detail

The position detail page (/{locale}/careers/{slug}) shows:

• Job title as the page heading
• Position metadata: employment type, experience level, location, remote badge, department
• Salary range (if show_salary is enabled for this position)
• Posting date and deadline (or “Open until filled”)
• About the Role: full description (WYSIWYG content)
• Requirements section (if provided)
• What We Offer / Benefits section (if provided)
• Application form (see below)
• Related Positions: up to 3 other open positions from the same category

Front-end: Application Form

The application form is displayed on the position detail page and submits via POST to /{locale}/careers/{slug}/apply.

Form Fields

On successful submission, the user is redirected back with a success message: “Thank you for your application! We'll review it and get back to you soon.”

Email Notifications

When careers_notify_admin_on_application is enabled, the add-on sends an email notification to all admin users (is_admin = true) whenever a new application is submitted.

Notification Content

• Subject: “New Application for {Position Title}”
• Greeting: “New Job Application Received”
• Body: “{Applicant Name} has applied for the {Position Title} position.”
• Action button: Links to the admin applications list
• Footer: “Log in to your admin panel to review the application.”

The notification is sent via the mail channel using Laravel’s built-in MailMessage class.

CAPTCHA Integration

The application form supports CAPTCHA verification to prevent spam submissions.

How It Works

1. Enable CAPTCHA in Careers → Settings.
2. Ensure a CAPTCHA provider (e.g., reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha) is configured in Admin → Settings → General.
3. The SubmitApplicationRequest automatically adds the CAPTCHA validation rule when enabled.
4. The CAPTCHA field name is resolved dynamically from the core CaptchaService.

Multi-Language Support

The add-on ships with complete translations in English and French.

Translatable Content

• Positions: title, slug, description, requirements, benefits, meta_title, meta_description
• Categories: name, slug, description (via the core categories system)

Static UI Strings

All static text uses translation keys prefixed with careers::careers., organized into sections:

• employment_types.*: Full Time, Part Time, Contract, Freelance, Internship
• experience_levels.*: Entry Level, Mid Level, Senior, Lead, Executive
• application_statuses.*: New, Reviewing, Shortlisted, Interview, Offered, Hired, Rejected
• admin.*: all admin panel labels and messages
• front.*: all front-end labels and messages
• notifications.*: email notification strings

Updating

There are two ways to update this add-on: via the admin panel (recommended) or manually replacing files.

Method 1: Admin Panel Upload (Recommended)

1. Download the latest .zip file of this add-on.
2. Go to Admin panel → Add-ons and click the Upload button.
3. Select or drag the .zip file into the upload area.
4. A confirmation prompt will show the current and new version numbers. Click Replace to proceed.
5. Go to Admin panel → System Update (/admin/update) to apply any pending database migrations.

Method 2: Manual File Replacement

Step 1: Replace Files

Replace the add-on directory with the new version.

Step 2: Run Migrations

php artisan migrate

Pending migrations run once, so the command is safe to repeat.

Step 3: Clear Caches

php artisan config:clear
php artisan route:clear
php artisan view:clear

Step 4: Verify

Visit Admin → Careers → Positions to confirm the add-on is working correctly.

Uninstallation

Switching an add-on off without losing anything is a deactivation: go to Admin panel → Add-ons, find Careers Portal and click Deactivate.

• Its routes, views, admin menu entries and permissions stop being registered, and its front-end pages stop answering.
• Its database tables and all the data they hold are kept, and its files stay under extensions/addons/careers/. Nothing is deleted.
• The purchase code recorded at activation is kept too, so activating the add-on again does not ask for it.
• Deactivation is refused while another active add-on depends on this one: deactivate that add-on first.

Click Activate on the same card to switch it back on. Pending migrations are re-run, assets are republished, and the add-on picks up exactly where it left off.

Removing

Removing is permanent and destroys the add-on's data. The Remove button only appears on a deactivated add-on, so removal is always two steps:

1. Deactivate Careers Portal (see Uninstallation).
2. Click Remove on its card and confirm the prompt.

The admin panel then, in one pass:

• runs the add-on's uninstall hook, if it ships one, while its code is still on disk;
• revokes the permissions declared in its addon.json;
• rolls back its migrations (this drops its database tables and every row they hold) and purges its entries from the migrations table, so a later reinstall migrates from scratch;
• deletes its published assets: public/addons/careers/, public/vendor/careers/ and storage/app/public/addons/careers/;
• deletes the add-on directory extensions/addons/careers/;
• deletes its row in the addons table (the recorded purchase code goes with it) and clears the application cache.

Removal is refused, with an explanatory message and before anything is destroyed, when the add-on is still active, when another active add-on depends on it, or when the web server (PHP) user cannot delete extensions/addons/careers/. In that last case, give that user write permission on the directory and on its parent, then try again.

Deleting the folder over FTP or SSH is not equivalent: the add-on's tables, its entries in the migrations table and its addons row are all left behind, and its card stays in the list. Use Remove in the admin panel instead.

Troubleshooting

Positions not showing on the front-end

• Ensure the position status is Published (not Draft).
• Check that the Application Deadline (closes_at) has not passed. Expired positions are excluded from the front-end listing.
• Verify the theme has the pages/careers/index.blade.php and pages/careers/show.blade.php view files.

Resume upload fails

• Check the allowed file types in Careers → Settings (default: pdf, doc, docx).
• Verify the file size does not exceed the configured careers_max_resume_size limit.
• Ensure your PHP upload_max_filesize and post_max_size directives in php.ini are large enough.
• Check that the storage/app/careers/resumes/ directory is writable.

Admin not receiving email notifications

• Ensure careers_notify_admin_on_application is enabled in settings.
• Verify your mail configuration (MAIL_MAILER, MAIL_HOST, etc.) in .env.
• Check that the admin user has is_admin = true in the database.
• Review storage/logs/laravel.log for mail delivery errors.

CAPTCHA not appearing on the application form

• Ensure CAPTCHA is enabled in Careers → Settings.
• A CAPTCHA provider must be configured in the core settings (Admin → Settings → General).
• The theme’s application form template must include the CAPTCHA component (check @if blocks in the Blade template).

Category filtering returns 404

• Verify the category slug exists and matches the URL parameter.
• The slug is resolved against the current locale first, then falls back to English. If neither matches, a 404 is returned.
• Ensure the category is marked as active.

Application form not submitting

• Check that the position is still open (published and deadline not passed). Submitting to a closed position returns a 404.
• Ensure the CSRF token is included in the form (@csrf directive).
• Review validation errors: the resume field is required and must match the allowed types and size.

Translatable fields not saving

• Ensure the form submits translatable fields as nested arrays (e.g., title[en], title[fr]).
• The default locale fields are required; other locales are optional.
• Check that the spatie/laravel-translatable package is installed and configured.