Many sites are getting rid of more complex quick searches where you drill down by category, location, and more. Instead, they simply ask for job keywords and a location. Now, you can have it too!

Users can simply type in a keyword and their location and search in seconds. webJobs will parse out the city and state (or province) automatically. This works for the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and most other countries. If you have the zip code plugin, then users can simply enter just a zip code and we’ll find the job automatically without having to type in a city and state.

This feature will be released in webJobs 4.1 due out in Q4 2011.

We’re very excited to announce the release of webJobs 4.0. This version builds a solid foundation for some great new features to come in future versions, and comes packed with some additions that we’re very excited about as well. These include:

• webJobs App Marketplace – A marketplace for developers to distribute their fantastic addons that extend the webJobs platform,
• Brand new admin area – Totally revamped administrative area thats sleek, easy to use, and organized much more logically.
• Revamped billing system – We’ve revamped the billing system entirely to make it even easier to use, and be more powerful at the same time.
• Importing job seekers and employers – Import an existing database in CSV format to your new job board.
• Updated Facebook integration to comply with their latest API using oAuth (current webJobs licensees will need to update their settings to reactivate this new update).

We think you’ll love this new release. Upgrade today to take advantage of the new features!

Important notice to existing customers

webJobs 4.0 is now using Ioncube instead of Zend Optimizer for compiling a small portion of the code. The reason for this is that Zend is no longer making Zend Optimizer compatible with PHP versions above 5.3, meaning it will slowly become obsolete.

Your host needs to enable Ioncube before you can use webJobs 4.0. Be sure to do this before updating!

Over the years that webJobs has been available, we’ve worked with thousands of talented developers who have used the platform for their clients sites, or their own. Many of these developers have made some incredible changes and improvements to the software in the process of building their sites. We’ve always wanted to be able to connect these developers and allow them to distribute their addons easily to you. Now, they can!

How does it work?

Developers who develop new addons, or “apps”, can apply for our developer program to distribute their apps through our App Marketplace. When you upgrade to webJobs 4.0, you’ll see a brand new section in the administrative section called “App Marketplace”. This allows you to browse through the great offering that developers have come up with.

You can click on any app to see it’s description, screenshots of it in action, and reviews from other customers. If you like what you see, simply purchase the app with your existing Web Scribble account. After payment is made successfully, the app installs automatically with no intervention.

Simply browse, purchase, and have your app instantly with one click!

What does this mean for me?

We’re really excited about the App Marketplace. When we develop new features, we try to think of what all of our customers would want in the software. Sometimes, this means we leave certain people out, or simply don’t have the time to develop every feature we’d like as quickly as we’d like. Now, third-party developers will be able to fill that void and allow you to extend your already powerful job board even further.

What kinds of apps will be offered?

The App Marketplace is launching with over half a dozen webJobs themes that you may purchase. We’re also working with developers who are creating functional changes that will offer new features to your job board. Over time, the App Marketplace will run the full gamut of apps from small functional changes, to new themes, to major new features.

A new look for the webJobs admin area has long been overdue. We’re changing that in v4.0. Here’s a peek at the new look:

As you can see, these changes aren’t purely cosmetic. While we hope you think the new design looks great like we do, there are usability improvements in it as well. Here are just some of the things we improved in the new admin area:

• There is documentation on almost every page to help explain what each setting and field does
• Navigation between pages is more consistent
• Subsections of the admin area are broken up more logically by sections
• Commonly accessed pages are linked from an accessible menu at the top

Over the years, we’ve made improvements to the billing system in webJobs that allowed it to be quite flexible and able to handle most people’s needs. However, by adding new features, we felt that the interface slowly became more and more difficult to use. The billing system also lacked a few features that customers would ask from time to time. In webJobs 4.0, we decided to totally revamp the billing system to be both easy to use, and much more powerful than it was before.

Before, if you wanted to offer two types of billing items (for example job postings and resume views) for one price, you had to create what we called a Combo Billing Item. We’ve decided to get rid of those entirely and take care of that for you in the background, so you don’t have to worry about a thing.

Now, when you create a billing item, all you do is choose the items you’d like to charge for at once. Let’s say you want to create a package to charge employers for one job posting that lasts 30 days, and give them 1,000 resume views with that package. Simply enter in those quantities, and you’re on your way! Also, in the previous system, it wasn’t possible to offer certain items only as part of a package. For example, if you wanted to charge for one job posting and give employers 1,000 free resume views, you could not do this. The reason for this was that you first had to create a billing item called “one job posting”, then another called “1,000 resume views”, then create a bundle for those two using the Combo Billing Items feature. Cumbersome, right? Now we let you create these bundles in seconds, and fix the dilemma of offering an item free with purchase of something else.

The other major improvement is the ability to create billing items that only certain employers or job seekers can see. For example, lets say Microsoft wants to post 100 jobs on your site, and you’d like to give them preferential billing. The only way to do this before was to create a coupon code, which is an extra step for the employer to do when ordering. Now, you can create a billing item that can be seen only by certain employers, which they will be able to purchase over and over again right from their account.

We’re very exciting about these major improvements on our billing system, and hope you love these new improvements!

Many have asked for it, and now you’ll have it. Whether you’re switching from an existing job platform to webJobs or just want to import a list of users from another system, you now can. It’s simple. You upload a Microsoft Excel CSV file with your user data, map your fields to ours, and in a few minutes your old user database will be in webJobs. Let’s take a look at how it works.

First, you’ll need an Excel file (in CSV format) with all your data. Most database systems will let you export to Excel. After you’ve exported, you’ll have  one Excel file with many columns containing the data from your old system. Here’s a simple example of what you might use:

Next, upload this Excel file into the import tool. Since the data we get from customer to customer varies in what they have an how it’s organized, we’ll need to match up the webJobs data with your columns. Here’s what that process looks like:

Here you’ll see the columns we have in our Excel file and the columns that need to be matched up in webJobs. You’ll want to match up as many as you can so we can import all the available data. You can even check your work by clicking the arrows to navigate through some entries to see what data will be imported. Then, with a click of a button you can import all these entries. It’s as simple as that.

This feature will be available in webJobs 4.0 which is slated for release in Q3 2011.