Adding a custom page template to a plugin generated page

Question

I have a page template, which is fully working throughout the website other than the pages where the plugin has generated a page such as a job description page, as the plugin that I am using is WP Job Manager. I have tried to include the php file in the functions of the theme and also the template of the theme however, nothing appears and if it does then the content of the template appears above the navigation bar?

Is there anyway in which I am able to get this into this page and any other page that is dynamically created via the plugin, as there will be many pages.

The plugin creates a Custom Post Type which is what is used to create the pages, the pages are not actually existing in the back end.

The plugin is located in the wp-content/wp-job-manager/... and the page template is located in the wp-content/themes/test-theme/universal-template.php

The code I have tried is <?php include('/wp-content/themes/test-theme/universal-template.php'); ?> I know this isn't the best way to include a file but I was doing this till I can get it working

Answer 1

You can set the page template by calling update_post_meta() with a key of ‘_wp_page_template’.

Or while inserting posts, you can pass page_template to wp_insert_post().

See: https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_insert_post/#more-information

Answer 2

Using wp_insert_post() you can add a new post and use an existing theme.

  $new_page_id = array(
        'post_title'     => 'examplePage',
        'post_type'      => 'custom_post',
        'post_name'      => 'examplePage',
        'post_content'   => '',
        'post_status'    => 'publish',
        'post_author'    => get_user_by( 'id', 1 )->user_id,
        'menu_order'     => 0,
        // Assign page template
        'page_template'  => "/wp-content/themes/test-theme/universal-template.php"


    ); 
    wp_insert_post($new_page_id);