Government exams after graduation, sorted by who actually hires

A bachelor’s degree is the minimum qualification for the largest single tier of government recruitment in India. That tier is not one exam. It is a set of exams run by different bodies, some open to any discipline and some demanding a specific one, and a few exams that sit right next to this tier without actually belonging to it.

This is a list of the graduate-level exams this site has verified eligibility data for, organised by who conducts them, plus the near neighbours that are worth knowing you can rule out.

Central civil services

The UPSC Civil Services Examination asks for a bachelor’s degree in any discipline from a recognised university. It is the exam behind IAS, IPS, IFS and the other central civil services, run across three stages, and it is the one most people mean when they say “graduate-level government exam” without specifying further.

Staff Selection Commission

SSC CGL requires a bachelor’s degree from a recognised university and is, by volume of applicants, the largest graduate-level central recruitment on this list. SSC CPO, which recruits sub-inspectors for Delhi Police and the central armed police forces, also requires a bachelor’s degree from a recognised university.

Two SSC exams that are commonly grouped with these but do not belong here: SSC CHSL asks only for a Class 12 pass, and SSC MTS asks only for a Class 10 pass. Both are run by the same commission as CGL and CPO, which is exactly why people assume they share a qualification tier. They do not.

Banking recruitment

Every bank recruitment this site has verified data for asks for a bachelor’s degree in any discipline: IBPS PO, IBPS Clerk, SBI PO, SBI Clerk, and LIC AAO. IBPS RRB carries the same requirement with one addition, proficiency in the local language of the state applied for, as specified in the notification.

RBI Grade B asks for a bachelor’s degree with a minimum aggregate as specified in the notification, which is a stricter condition than “any discipline” even though it still does not name a specific stream. Check the current notification for the exact percentage, since it is not fixed here.

EPFO Assistant and IB ACIO, both recruiting through their own organisations rather than through SSC or IBPS, ask for a bachelor’s degree in any discipline.

Railways: one exam, two qualification tiers

RRB NTPC is a single exam that recruits for two separate qualification tiers within the same notification. Undergraduate-level posts need only a Class 12 pass. Graduate-level posts need a bachelor’s degree. Which tier you qualify for depends on the specific post you apply against, not on the exam as a whole, so reading the post-wise qualification column in the notification matters more here than for almost any other exam on this list.

RRB Group D, run by the same railway recruitment boards, is not a graduate exam. It asks for a Class 10 pass or an ITI certificate. Being on the same official portal as NTPC does not put it in the same qualification tier.

Defence and engineering entries that specify a degree

CDS, the Combined Defence Services exam, is a graduate entry route, but the degree it requires depends on which academy you are applying to within the same exam. The Indian Military Academy and Officers Training Academy ask for a bachelor’s degree in any discipline. The Indian Naval Academy asks for a bachelor’s degree in engineering. The Air Force Academy asks for a bachelor’s degree with Physics and Mathematics at Class 12, or a Bachelor of Engineering.

NDA, also a UPSC defence exam and often mentioned alongside CDS, is not a graduate exam. All of its wings, Army, Air Force and Naval, admit candidates on a Class 12 pass. The two exams sit under the same commission and lead to the same kind of career, and that is precisely why NDA gets miscounted as a graduate exam. It is an entry point before graduation, not after it.

ESE, the Engineering Services Examination, asks for a bachelor’s degree in engineering, or an equivalent qualification recognised by the government, in Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, or Electronics and Telecommunication engineering. It does not accept a degree in an unrelated discipline.

GATE, used for recruitment into public sector undertakings, asks for a bachelor’s degree in engineering, technology or architecture, or a master’s degree in a relevant science subject, as specified in the notification. GATE itself is not a recruitment exam for a single employer; a qualifying score is what PSUs use as their own entry filter, and each PSU sets its own score threshold and process on top of it.

DMRC recruitment asks for a diploma or a bachelor’s degree in engineering for technical posts, and a bachelor’s degree in any discipline for non-technical posts, with the exact requirement depending on the post notified.

The pattern worth remembering

Two things repeat across this list. First, “bachelor’s degree in any discipline” and “bachelor’s degree in [a named field]” are different requirements, not variations on the same one, and an exam that asks for the second will not accept the first. Second, being run by a body you associate with graduate recruitment does not make an exam a graduate exam: SSC also runs CHSL and MTS, the railway boards also run Group D, and UPSC also runs NDA. The commission is not the qualification tier.

How to shorten this list for yourself

1. Confirm your own qualification precisely: any discipline, or a named field. A degree in an unrelated subject clears the first kind of requirement and not the second.
2. Check the age window for each exam that clears the qualification filter, including any category-wise relaxation you are entitled to. Read how age relaxation works and put the exam’s “age as on” date into the age calculator rather than counting years by hand.
3. Check how many attempts each exam allows you, since some graduate-level exams cap attempts by category and some do not. See how many attempts government exams allow.
4. Only after qualification and age have narrowed the list, compare pattern and syllabus among what remains. For the broader structure behind all of this, what a sarkari exam actually is sets out the full tier system these graduate exams sit inside.

Confirm against the current notification

Qualification requirements, minimum aggregates, and which posts fall under which tier have changed before, exam to exam and cycle to cycle. Everything above reflects the eligibility data verified for each exam on this site as of publication. Before you commit preparation time to any exam named here, read the eligibility section of its current notification on the conducting body’s own site, not this article or any other secondary source.