ISLAMABAD, March 1: The Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) has decided to start inviting applications for ‘general recruitment’ online from April with a view to facilitating stakeholders and ensuring fast-track processing.

The FPSC announced on Friday that applications for general recruitment in BS-16 and above would only be invited online through a consolidated advertisement to be published in newspapers on April 7.

Applications on forms filled out manually and hard copies of certificates and degrees will no longer be required. The applicants will have the facility of receiving instant confirmation and will be able to receive SMS intimations also.

The FPSC receives more than 100,000 applications each year for over 1,000 vacancies. The launching of the online system will streamline the application process, provide significant advantage and facility to applicants and reduce processing time.

Screening tests for general recruitment will now be conducted bi-monthly. To facilitate the candidates, their application forms will be placed on the FPSC website www.fpsc.gov.pk after provisional acceptance of their candidature. Candidates will be intimated about their written test through this website and SMS.

The commission has advised candidates to visit the FPSC website frequently after filing their applications online.

After the acceptance of candidatures, it will be mandatory for candidates to bring in their original CNICs and download admission certificates and ‘Original Treasury Receipts’ at the time of reporting for the test.

To determine the eligibility of candidates for posts requiring experience, the pre-selected candidates in the ratio of 1:5 for merit vacancies and 1:3 for provincial and regional quota vacancies will be required to furnish requisite documents within 15 days of the receipt of intimation from the commission.

Candidates called for interview will have to bring their original documents as well as a set of attested documents for scrutiny at the time of the interview.

Candidates, whose documents are found deficient will be provisionally interviewed but will be required to provide proof of their eligibility within a period of seven days without fail or else their candidature will be cancelled.

The online application system will offer tremendous convenience to applicants in ‘general recruitment’ cases. They will be no longer required to collect manual application forms and deposit it at the FPSC offices.

They will also not be required to furnish copies of documents at the time of online applications which may be done on 24/7 basis rather than during office timings.