# How I Built a College and University Job Search Website - Link: https://skmarketsinc.com/college-university-job-search-website/ - Published: 2026-10-17T20:34:23+02:00 - Author: skminc ## From a simple idea to a searchable career platform connecting job seekers with higher education opportunities. If you’re like me, you probably get ideas for apps, websites, and online services all the time. I know I do. What I’m not always good at is actually executing those ideas. Sometimes I write a little code; other times, I buy a domain name that fits an idea. Then life happens, and before I know it, I have a bunch of folders, some code, and domain names—but no real websites to show for it. I’m trying to break that cycle. ## My Journey Through Higher Education and Digital Agency Work I worked in higher education from 1998 to 2016. It was both the best and one of the hardest career choices I could have made, and it was an awesome experience. I met so many great colleagues, team members, friends, and others along the way. I left higher education and moved into the private sector for two years, but it wasn’t a great fit. Eventually, I went full-time on my own at my digital agency, Gas Mark 8. I continued looking for higher education roles and interviewed for several positions, including a few full-day, on-campus interviews, but nothing worked out. What can you do? It happens. ## Why Higher Education Is Losing Experienced Talent Over the six years since I left higher education, I’ve seen so many amazing people leave the industry. It started before the pandemic, and the last three years have been especially difficult for higher education. There has been a significant exodus of talent. There are many reasons for this, including pay, remote work, career advancement, difficult working environments, and major changes across education. Whatever the reasons, there has been a substantial loss of experienced professionals, and that’s a real disappointment. I’m bummed because I love higher education, and I believe it’s important. I don’t know what the future holds, but I believe in what higher education represents. I have one child a year away from finishing college and another a year away from starting. They’re working with amazing faculty and staff and taking advantage of the opportunities available to them. Those experiences are critical as they prepare to enter the world. ## Turning an Old Idea Into a Working Website Back in 2013 or 2014, I created a quick-and-dirty job search website that provided links to the human resources listing pages of colleges and universities around Cleveland, where I live. I was curious about the opportunities available, so I built a simple tool. I shared it with a few people on my team and added more cities, including Erie and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was primarily for my own use and had very little design or usability work. However, I noticed that a few schools offered RSS feeds. I added a note to my code to build a feature that would retrieve job postings and display them on the page without requiring another click. The idea stayed with me. It took seven or eight years, but I finally built it. ### Starting With WordPress and RSS Feeds Before Christmas, I was going through folders of code and old websites when I found the original job-search site. “Finally,” I thought. “There has to be an easy way to build this.” In about 15 minutes, I created a WordPress development site, installed some of the tools we use at Gas Mark 8, and got to work. I started with the last school where I worked—miss you, JCU!—which is also where my son attends. I added its RSS feed, and to my surprise, it worked. Fifteen jobs appeared in a custom post type I had created. Interesting! ### Automating Job Imports From Colleges and Universities I continued improving the features and data structures. My goal was to build something that wouldn’t require constant manual maintenance. I wanted to add schools, import their job postings, and ensure the data went to the right place automatically. The process started well. I found more and more schools whose applicant tracking systems (ATS) offered RSS or Atom feeds. A reasonable number did, but the vast majority did not. Many institutions use closed systems, which is understandable, but it makes sharing job information more difficult. ### Working Around Applicant Tracking System Limitations One thing my plugins and custom code still didn’t handle well, apart from a few tests, was scraping job-posting pages. Some of the applicant tracking systems I tried used similar structures, which meant I could reuse portions of my code. However, many obscured their code or prevented requests to data sources such as JSON feeds. Workday was one example that presented challenges. If anyone has written a scraper for these applicant tracking systems, I’d love to hear about it. ## Introducing CollegeAndUniversity.careers Once the job postings started coming in, the website needed a proper layout, design, user interface, and, most importantly, a name. Let me introduce you to CollegeAndUniversity.careers. Have you tried to find a good domain name lately? It’s difficult! After a few weeks of work and some help—thanks, Dylan!—the site was ready to use. I had connected approximately 90 schools, and the website had more than 7,700 job listings. ### Searchable Listings and Automated Updates The site polls participating schools daily, retrieves new job postings, updates existing listings, and removes jobs that are no longer advertised. We also developed useful search features that allow visitors to find opportunities by keyword, state, or both. I’d love to add job-search alerts so users can receive notifications about relevant opportunities. That feature is on the list for future development, along with several other improvements. ### Creating a Brand for the Platform We also have a logo. I had one designed some time ago for another app that remains on my development list. We all loved the design, so we adapted it by adding a graduation cap. Why an octopus? It has eight legs, and our agency name includes an eight. It made sense at the time. I’m thinking of calling it Tako. ### The Technology Behind the Website The website is built with WordPress and uses Elementor. I created the design in Adobe XD, and we developed the website from there. It uses WP All Import Pro to poll participating schools and import job postings. I also wrote some PHP code to scrape a few websites that didn’t provide feeds. The solution works, although it isn’t perfect. The site is hosted on Cloudways, where we’re a Gold Agency Partner and big fans of the platform. Its services have made our work much easier. ## What’s Next for the Job Search Website? I’m sharing the project here because some people still subscribe to this blog by email. I hope you’ll visit the site and take a look. You may still work in higher education, so I’d love to hear your feedback and ideas about how to make this job-search tool as useful as possible. If you have a moment, please check it out. Better yet, if you know someone searching for their next career opportunity, share it with them. We’re adding new schools every day. If even one person discovers an amazing opportunity through the site, all the work and time will have been worthwhile. ## Why Turning Ideas Into Action Matters As a developer and entrepreneur, I’m glad to finally get one of these ideas out of my head and into the world. Building a website doesn’t always require a huge team or a long development cycle to get started. Sometimes, the first step is simply finding an old idea, testing a useful technology, and building a small version that works. Whether you’re creating a job-search platform, a business website, or a digital product, progress begins when you move from planning to execution. At Success King Marketing Inc., we believe in turning ideas into practical digital opportunities. Explore our blog insights and eBooks for more ideas about website development, digital marketing, entrepreneurship, and online business growth. **Thanks, and Happy New Career!** ### Share this: * [ Facebook ](https://skmarketsinc.com/college-university-job-search-website/?share=facebook) * [ X ](https://skmarketsinc.com/college-university-job-search-website/?share=x) * [ LinkedIn ](https://skmarketsinc.com/college-university-job-search-website/?share=linkedin) * [ Email ](https://skmarketsinc.com/college-university-job-search-website/?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20How%20I%20Built%20a%20College%20and%20University%20Job%20Search%20Website&body=https%3A%2F%2Fskmarketsinc.com%2Fcollege-university-job-search-website%2F&share=email) * [ Pinterest ](https://skmarketsinc.com/college-university-job-search-website/?share=pinterest) * [ Tumblr ](https://skmarketsinc.com/college-university-job-search-website/?share=tumblr) * [ WhatsApp ](https://skmarketsinc.com/college-university-job-search-website/?share=jetpack-whatsapp) * [ Threads ](https://skmarketsinc.com/college-university-job-search-website/?share=threads) ### Like this: Like Loading… ### _Related_