Three job boards. One central database.
The apprenticeship job board brings together people looking for training places and businesses. Since 2023, we have been supporting and modernising the grown TYPO3 platform – from the central data connection and new functions to the direct findability of individual apprenticeship occupations.
An established platform with complex dependencies.
The platform bundles apprenticeships, internships and holiday jobs. The offers are synchronised directly with the chamber's specialist database. In addition, businesses can report their vacancies via their own forms.
When we took over the project in 2023, the system had grown over many years. Several parallel data connections, a lack of consistent version control and outdated technical structures made maintenance difficult.
Instead of rebuilding the entire platform, we are modernising it step by step during ongoing operation. This keeps familiar processes in place while we renew the technical foundation in a targeted way.
What we have been developing further since 2023.
Technical foundation
We converted the project to Composer, introduced consistent version control and standardised the processes for testing and publishing.
Updates and version changes
In addition to regular security updates, we carried out two major version changes and updated the platform to TYPO3 13 LTS.
New functions
We extended the job boards with additional data fields, anonymous job advertisements and the upload of company logos.
Data protection and accessibility
We deal with data protection and digital accessibility requirements within the existing platform and implement the necessary adjustments.
Findability
We introduced separate URLs for occupation-specific result lists. This makes them accessible independently of the search form.
Apprenticeships, internships and holiday jobs at a glance.
Every occupation gets its own address.
The result lists of the job boards were originally only accessible via search forms. Individual occupations lacked their own addresses through which the matching offers could be called up and linked directly.
We extended the structure with descriptive URLs for the individual occupations. This also allows search engines to access these result lists in a targeted way. The offers continue to be maintained centrally; the editorial team does not have to create additional content pages for this.
One central connection instead of four parallel accesses.
When switching to TYPO3 13, we also revised the connection to the specialist database. Four database accesses that had grown in parallel were merged into one central connection.
This means that changes to this connection no longer have to be implemented in several places in the code. This simplifies maintenance and makes later extensions easier.
The apprenticeship job board in action.
The screen video (18 seconds, without sound) shows the apprenticeship job board of the Hamburg Chamber of Crafts: an occupation is selected in the “Apprenticeship occupation” selection list; the number of vacant apprenticeships is shown next to each occupation. Alongside, the apprenticeship counter shows the vacant apprenticeships per training year and in total for Hamburg's skilled trades.
Three job boards, one shared basis.
How we help with comparable projects.
Develop a grown TYPO3 system further?
Do you want to modernise your existing TYPO3 website or add new functions? We check the technical state and clarify with you which processes should be retained and where changes make sense. From this we develop the next steps.
