The application form checklist that stops a form being rejected

A rejected application is worse than a failed exam. A failed exam tells you what to work on. A rejected form tells you nothing, costs you a full recruitment cycle, and the reason is almost always something that took two minutes to get right and was done in a hurry on the last evening.

Almost every rejection traces back to one of four things: a document that was not ready, an image that did not meet the specification, a detail that did not match the certificate it was supposed to match, or a payment that did not complete. All four are avoidable before the portal opens.

Get these ready before you start filling anything

The single biggest cause of a bad form is starting it without the documents in front of you. Collect these first, as files, at the sizes the notification asks for:

• Matriculation certificate. This is the document your date of birth is taken from, and it is the one that decides disputes. Whatever date it shows is your date of birth for the recruitment, regardless of any other document.
• Qualifying degree or certificate for the band you are applying in, with the year of passing and the awarding institution as printed.
• Category certificate if you are claiming a reservation or an age relaxation, in the format the notification specifies and issued by the authority it names. A certificate in the wrong format is treated as no certificate.
• Photograph and signature as separate image files, at the exact dimensions, file type and file size the notification states.
• Photo identity document, whichever the portal accepts, with the number as printed on it.
• Bank or payment method that will actually complete an online transaction, tested rather than assumed.

Fill the personal details against the certificate, not from memory

Every field that also appears on a certificate has to match that certificate exactly. Not approximately, and not in the version you normally write.

Name, including whether it carries a middle name, an expansion of an initial, or a surname the certificate spells differently. Father’s and mother’s names in the same way. Date of birth from matriculation. Category exactly as the certificate names it, since a certificate saying one thing and a form claiming another is a discrepancy the verification stage will find.

If your certificates disagree with each other, resolve that before applying, not after selection. A name correction is a slow process and it is much slower under the time pressure of a document verification date.

The photo and signature are where most forms fail

The image specification is the most-failed part of the form because it is the only part with hard numerical requirements that a candidate cannot eyeball. A portal that accepts an upload has not confirmed the image is valid; some portals reject at submission, some at admit card generation, and some at document verification, which is the worst possible time to find out.

What the notification specifies, and what all of it has to satisfy at once:

• Pixel dimensions, given as width by height.
• File size, given as a range with both a minimum and a maximum. Being under the minimum fails as surely as being over the maximum.
• File format, usually JPEG.
• For the photograph: a recent image, plain background, face clearly visible, and on many exams a date or a name written on the image itself.
• For the signature: signed in the stated ink colour on white paper, in running handwriting rather than block capitals, scanned rather than photographed where the notification says so.

The photo resizer and signature resizer on this site take a file and produce one that meets a given pixel and file-size target, entirely in your browser, with nothing uploaded anywhere. Use them against the numbers in your exam’s notification, not against a general-purpose “passport size” preset, because the requirements differ between exams and the presets on this site are per exam for that reason.

Payment is a step, not a formality

A form is submitted when the fee is paid and the portal confirms it, not when the last field is filled. Treat these as separate events:

• Check whether your category is exempt from the fee before paying one. Fee exemption categories vary between recruitments.
• Complete the payment and wait for the portal’s own confirmation, rather than the bank’s. A debited amount with no portal confirmation is an incomplete application until it reconciles.
• Save the transaction reference and the confirmation page. If the payment is debited and not registered, that reference is the only thing that gets it resolved.
• Do not leave payment to the final day. Portals are slowest and payment gateways fail most often in the last forty-eight hours, and a gateway failure on the closing date is not usually treated as grounds for an extension.

Before you press submit

Read the filled form once, from the top, against the documents rather than against your memory of what you typed. Specifically confirm:

• Every name and date matches the certificate it came from.
• The category claimed matches the certificate you hold.
• Post preferences and centre preferences are in the order you actually want, since many recruitments do not allow a change afterwards.
• The photograph is yours and the signature is yours, in the correct fields, which sounds absurd until you have seen a form where they were swapped.
• The declaration is read rather than ticked.

After submitting

Download and save the submitted form and the payment receipt as files, in a place you will still have them in six months. Note the registration number somewhere separate from the portal, because it is what you will need for the admit card, the result and any correction window.

If the recruitment has a correction window, note the dates. A correction window is the only cheap chance to fix a mistake, and it closes quietly.

Check the specification for your exam

Every requirement above is a category, not a fixed number. The exact pixel dimensions, file size limits, fee amounts, exempt categories and accepted document formats are set per exam, per cycle, in the notification. Each exam page on this site lists the photograph and signature specification as that exam’s notification states it, alongside the official link. Fill the form against that notification, not against this article and not against what a different exam asked for last year.