After You Apply: Roll Number Slips, Tests, Interviews and Merit Lists

When an online application is submitted you receive a reference. PPSC gives an Application Number and an Edit Token Number, sent by SMS and email; FPSC gives a Tracking ID. Save them - you need them to edit your application, print documents and check results. PPSC lets you edit until the closing date; FPSC allows one edit within the closing date.

When the test is scheduled, the commission or testing service publishes it on its website. At PPSC you print your admission letter from the website by entering your CNIC and choosing the post. Do not wait to be contacted - check the website of the body running your recruitment. On this site, a job's page shows the test date and result once they have been recorded.

• Bring your original, valid CNIC. At PPSC, if it is unavailable, a CNIC that expired no more than six months before, a valid passport, or a computerised domicile certificate with your photograph may let you sit the test provisionally - on a written undertaking to produce a valid CNIC at interview.
• Leave behind mobile phones and other electronic devices, books, bags and purses - they are prohibited in the hall.
• Know the marking. In PPSC's MCQ papers, 0.25 marks are deducted for each wrong answer.

PPSC has no fixed date for results, but expects about 10 days for an MCQ paper and about 30 days for a subjective one. Its Detailed Marks Certificates stay on the website for 30 days, and a candidate may apply for rechecking of the answer sheet on payment of a fee.

At PPSC, usually five candidates are called for interview for each post, informed by SMS and email. Bring your original CNIC, the call-up letter, your original degrees and certificates, your domicile, and any departmental permission or medical or disability certificate the post requires.

At PPSC, a candidate can make a representation against a rejection within 7 working days of being told, with documentary proof. There is no fee for the appeal.

The commission recommends candidates; the department then appoints, trains and posts them. At PPSC a merit list stays valid for one year from the original recommendations, or until a new requisition for the same post arrives, whichever is earlier - and if a recommended candidate does not join, a substitute is taken from the same list at the department's request. PPSC describes probation as up to two years, which the competent authority may extend.

Rules differ between commissions, departments and testing services, and they are revised. The advertisement for the post and the instructions of the body running the recruitment are always final - where they and this guide differ, follow them.