What KPSS Lisans is
KPSS, the Kamu Personel Secme Sinavi (Public Personnel Selection Examination), is the single gate through which almost every civilian public sector recruitment in Turkey passes. The Lisans (bachelor level) variant is written by candidates who hold, or are about to hold, a four-year undergraduate degree, and it feeds the largest share of kamu (public sector) hiring. In 2026, the Genel Yetenek and Genel Kultur session alone was sat by 1,708,329 candidates, which is the applicant number OSYM published against the exam that took place on 6 September 2026.
Two sister exams, KPSS Onlisans for associate degree holders and KPSS Ortaogretim for secondary school graduates, sit alongside Lisans in the same cycle. This page covers only the bachelor level; the other two are their own recruitment universes with their own cadre lists.
The role of OSYM
The exam is written and scored by OSYM (Olcme, Secme ve Yerlestirme Merkezi), the national assessment body that also runs YKS for university admission and ALES for academic personnel. OSYM does not do the hiring. It sets the questions, holds the exam across every province, publishes scores, and then runs the tercih (preference matching) rounds that turn scores into actual placements at specific institutions.
Who can apply
Candidates need a bachelor’s degree from a Turkish university or a foreign degree that YOK, the Council of Higher Education, has recognised as equivalent. Final-year students expecting to graduate within the window given in the current KPSS Kilavuzu (guide) may also apply. Applicants must be Turkish citizens. There is no single statutory age ceiling for sitting the exam itself; individual cadres in the tercih guide set their own age limits, most commonly 35 years, and those are what the applicant is actually screened against at the placement stage.
How the exam runs
KPSS Lisans is an OMR based sit-down paper delivered in multiple sessions across a single cycle. Every candidate takes the Genel Yetenek and Genel Kultur session, which combines Turkce (Turkish language), Matematik (mathematics) and a Genel Kultur block on history, geography, citizenship and current affairs.
Beyond that, the candidate chooses which further sessions to sit depending on the roles they want. Aspiring teachers add the Egitim Bilimleri (educational sciences) session and, for their specific teaching branch, the Ogretmenlik Alan Bilgisi Testi (OABT). Candidates targeting A group cadres, the specialist and inspectorate positions in central government, add the Alan Bilgisi session, which draws on Hukuk, Iktisat, Isletme, Maliye, Muhasebe, Calisma Ekonomisi ve Endustri Iliskileri, Ekonometri, Istatistik, Kamu Yonetimi and Uluslararasi Iliskiler in the combinations set by the current KPSS guide.
From score to placement: the tercih round
A KPSS score by itself does not hire anyone. After the results, OSYM publishes a Tercih Kilavuzu listing every open cadre with its minimum score type, education, and other requirements. The candidate signs into the OSYM Aday Islemleri Sistemi (AIS), enters an ordered list of cadres they are willing to take, and OSYM matches candidates to cadres by running through the preference lists in score order. This is the round Turkish candidates call “tercih robotu” territory: preference matching tools that model how a given score plays against the current cadre list.
The output is a placement letter to a specific institution: a KPSS-B placement goes to routine kamu cadres and starts work directly, while KPSS-A scores feed the further specialist entrance exams (uzmanlik) run by individual ministries.
On exam day
Candidates print the Sinava Giris Belgesi (entry document) from the OSYM AIS portal and arrive at the assigned centre with a valid photo identification accepted by OSYM. Electronic devices, notes and reference material are not permitted inside the exam room. Rules and timings for the current cycle are always the ones published in the Kilavuzu on osym.gov.tr, linked above.