New regulations on civil servant recruitment exams will be applied from July 1, 2025.

Recruitment examination for civil servant positions classified as staff

Decree 1702025/ND-CP stipulates that the civil servant recruitment examination for positions classified as staff will only include a professional skills test.

a) Examination formatQuestion and answer or practical exercise.

b)Exam content:

For the oral examination: Assessing critical thinking skills, the ability to apply knowledge to practice; the ability to carry out tasks and duties of the position being applied for; and the candidate's understanding of the position being applied for.

For the practical exam: Perform specific tasks as required by the job position.

The exam (oral or practical) is worth 100 points.

c) Exam time30 minutes.

Recruitment examination for civil servant positions in the specialist and equivalent ranks, and assistant and equivalent ranks.

The competition will be conducted in two rounds as follows:

a) Round 1: Preliminary exam testing general knowledge and abilities

Exam format: Multiple-choice test on a computer.

Exam content: 60 questions assessing candidates' critical thinking skills, ability to apply knowledge to practice; general and basic understanding of the political system; state administrative management; rights and obligations of civil servants, public service ethics; and knowledge of society, culture, and history.

Exam duration: 60 minutes.

Candidates who answer 50% or more of the questions correctly will be eligible to participate in Round 2.

b) Round 2: Professional skills test

Examination format: Written test or a combination of written test and interview.

Exam content:

For the written exam: The exam content tests knowledge of the Party's guidelines and policies, laws and regulations related to the recruitment sector/field; professional competence and skills; and the ability to perform official duties as required by the job position. The exam duration is 180 minutes (excluding time for copying the questions). Based on the specific characteristics of the agency, organization, or unit, the recruiting authority may organize the written exam using a computer-based format, while also determining the appropriate number of questions, ensuring a minimum of 60 and a maximum of 120 questions (in multiple-choice format). The exam duration will correspond to the total number of questions, ensuring a minimum of 90 minutes and a maximum of 180 minutes.

For the interview: The interview content focuses on assessing abilities such as: critical thinking, communication, situational judgment, learning, development, expression, attitude, personality, and other skills required for the job position. The maximum interview time is 30 minutes.

The written exam is worth 100 points; the interview is worth 100 points.

In the case of written exams conducted on computers, the Recruitment Council (Exam Committee) will develop question groups with varying levels of complexity and determine the corresponding points for each question.

If the combined written and interview format is chosen, the total score for the written and interview sections will be converted to a 100-point scale, with the written score accounting for 70% and the interview score for 30% (rounded to two decimal places).

Recruitment examination for positions ranked as senior specialist and equivalent.

The professional skills test will be conducted as stipulated for the second round of the exam mentioned above.

Recruitment for positions classified as senior specialist and equivalent, senior expert

For recruitment examinations for positions classified as senior specialists and equivalents, and senior experts, the Decree also stipulates the following professional skills examinations:

a) Project competition;

b) The content and format of the recruitment examination shall be decided by the competent recruiting authority, ensuring that it is appropriate to the requirements of the job position and must be specified in the recruitment plan and publicly announced in the recruitment notice.

c) Scoring scale for the Project: 100 points;

d) The maximum time for preparing and taking the project proposal exam for one candidate is 90 minutes, as decided by the head of the competent recruiting agency based on the requirements and specifics of the job position being recruited for.

This applies to recruitment cases with higher requirements for specialized skills and foreign languages.

In addition, Decree 170/2025/ND-CP also stipulates: In cases where the competent recruiting agency has higher specific requirements regarding the content and duration of the specialized professional examination than stipulated in this Article, or has specific requirements regarding foreign languages, these must be specifically stated in the Recruitment Plan and publicly disclosed in the Recruitment Announcement.

The competent recruitment authority decides on the foreign language exam, its content, format, duration, and the passing score. The foreign language exam score is a qualifying score and is not included in the professional skills exam score.

The foreign language exam must be completed before the professional skills exam. Those who pass the foreign language exam are eligible to participate in the professional skills exam.

Determining the successful candidates in the civil service recruitment exam.

Decree 170/2025/ND-CP stipulates that successful candidates in the civil servant recruitment examination must meet the following conditions:

a) Achieve a score of 50 points or higher in the specialized professional skills examination. In the case of a combined written and interview examination, candidates must participate in both exams (written and interview) and achieve a score of 50% or higher of the maximum score for each exam;

b) Candidates with a combined score from the specialized professional examination plus any priority points as stipulated in Article 6 of this Decree (if applicable) who have a higher score will be selected in descending order of their scores within the recruitment quota for each job position, including positions that are jointly recruited by multiple agencies employing civil servants.

The decree also states: In the event that two or more candidates have the same total score for the final criterion, the successful candidate will be determined according to the following order of priority:

a) The person with the higher score in the specialized professional skills exam;

b) The candidate with the higher score on the written test in round 2, in the case of a combined written and interview format.

If the successful candidate cannot be determined according to the order of priority, the head of the competent recruiting agency will decide the successful candidate.

According to Decree 170/2025/ND-CP, for positions recruited jointly by multiple agencies employing civil servants, the agency that employs the successful candidate shall be determined according to the priority order in the application form of the successful candidate. If the number of successful candidates applying for the same position exceeds the number of vacancies in that agency, priority will be given to the candidate with the higher recruitment score. If two or more candidates have equal recruitment scores for the last vacancy in that agency, the priority order specified in Clause 2 of this Article shall be used for selection.

Candidates who are unsuccessful in the civil service entrance examination are not allowed to retain their examination results for subsequent examinations.