Republic of Korea public service examinations

The Republic of Korea public service examinations are examinations held to screen applicants to the South Korean Civil Service, South Korean Foreign Service and South Korean Legal Service. Until their reformation in 2010, applicants who succeeded in the higher level exams could expect to join the service at a grade equivalent to many years of service. The examinations were open to all Republic of Korea citizens, and the applicant need not be the holder of a degree or have any other experience; passing the exams were in themselves sufficient for recruitment; however the exams were notoriously hard.

Korea has a long history of selecting by public examination, in pre Republic times by the Gwageo examinations, to choose those most able to fill the ranks of public office.

The Korean civil service exams are used to select applicants for the Korean Civil Service at the ninth (new entry) level. Following recruitment, promotion is based primarily on seniority, except for a number of direct entry recruitments at the seventh and fifth level, through the passing of the seventh and fifth level examinations (). For those passing the exam and entering the service at the fifth level, this is equivalent to 25 years of seniority working from the bottom up. In 2010, the government announced that they would phase out exams for selecting fifth level civil servants.

Similar exams existed for the legal profession, called the bar examination (the Korean system differed significantly from those in other jurisdictions in that passing the exam was in itself was sufficient to enter the profession and one need not have attended a law school and received a law degree) and for the Korean foreign service.

Because of the rewards possible to those passing the exams, specialist cramming schools and lodgings have developed to help would be applicants prepare for the exams. In 2013, there were 204,698 applicants, up from 137,649 in 2009. The exams act as a final hope for those who had not gained entry to a top university, or whose background has not allowed them to pursue the extracurricular activities now demanded by employers in South Korea. The exams are seen as promoting social mobility as recruitment depended on success in the examinations regardless of educational and family background.

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