What is ASEP? Greece's civil service selection board explained

ASEP, the Anotato Symvoulio Epilogis Prosopikou or Supreme Council for Civil Personnel Selection, is the independent authority that runs recruitment for permanent posts in the Greek public sector. It does not employ anyone itself. It designs the selection process, runs the exams and the scoring, and hands a ranked list of candidates to the ministry or public body that actually needs staff.

What ASEP actually does

ASEP’s job splits into two roles that people often mix up. For most PE (university-educated) and TE (technological-education) posts, ASEP now runs the Panhellenic Written Exam, a single national competition held roughly every two years under Law 4765/2021. For many other categories, particularly DE (secondary education) and YE (no formal qualification required) posts, ASEP still runs proclamations scored on paper qualifications, known as moriodotisi proclamations, without a written test.

Either way, ASEP produces a ranking. It does not choose who gets a specific job at a specific ministry; a hiring body still has to open a post, and then fills it from the top of ASEP’s list.

Why ASEP exists

Before ASEP was created in 1994, public sector hiring in Greece ran largely on discretion, and rospa (patronage-based) appointment was a well documented problem. ASEP was set up as an independent authority specifically to remove that discretion from individual hiring managers and replace it with a transparent, appealable, criteria-based process. That is still its core mandate: a candidate can see exactly why they ranked where they did, and can formally object if the scoring looks wrong.

Where the Panhellenic Written Exam fits

The ASEP Panhellenic Written Exam is the newest and, for PE and TE candidates, now the main route into most of the posts ASEP controls. It replaced a system where each hiring proclamation ran its own qualifications based scoring for these categories. If you are trying to work out whether the exam applies to you at all, read what the Panhellenic Written Exam actually involves before assuming it does.

Not every public sector job goes through ASEP at all. A small number of categories are excluded by law, and it is worth knowing which ones before you spend time preparing for an exam that would not apply to that post; see public sector hiring that bypasses ASEP entirely.

ASEP versus the older points-based proclamations

Many candidates confuse the written exam with the older, still active system of moriodotisi proclamations, where qualifications, experience, family status and similar factors are converted into points with no test at all. Both are run by ASEP, both produce a ranked list, but they are different mechanisms applying to different post categories. The distinction matters because the preparation is completely different: one rewards exam performance on the day, the other rewards documented history before you ever apply. See the difference between the written exam and points-based hiring for a fuller comparison.

How to follow ASEP’s own announcements

ASEP publishes every proclamation, every scoring table and every result on its own sites: the main site at asep.gr and the information portal at info.asep.gr, which is where scoring tables, questions and answer keys for each exam edition get posted after the fact. Neither of those sites requires a login to browse. If a private site is quoting a date or a score that is not confirmed on those two, treat it as unverified until it appears there.

Frequently asked questions

Is ASEP a ministry? No. It is an independent administrative authority, separate from the ministries whose posts it fills. It reports to Parliament, not to a single minister.

Does ASEP guarantee me a job if I pass? No. Passing a Panhellenic Written Exam or scoring well on a points-based proclamation puts you on a ranked list. You still need a hiring body to open a post at your rank or higher, in your category, for that to turn into a job.

Is the Panhellenic Written Exam the only way ASEP hires people? No. It applies mainly to PE and TE categories. Many DE and YE posts, and a handful of legally exempt categories, are filled through other ASEP mechanisms or outside ASEP altogether.

Where do I check if a specific job posting is genuinely run by ASEP? The proclamation itself will carry an ASEP reference number and will be listed on asep.gr or info.asep.gr. If it is not there, it did not come from ASEP.