Civil service
Brazil

Brazil started to move away from a patronage based public service starting in the second half of the 19th century, but written tests and merit only became the norm towards the end of the 1930s, as a result from reforms introduced during Getúlio Vargas first term as the nation's President.

Civil servants in Brazil (Portuguese: servidores públicos) are those working in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal, state, Federal District or municipal governments, including congressmen, senators, mayors, ministers, the president of the republic, and workers in government-owned corporations.

Career civil servants (not temporary workers or politicians) are hired only externally on the basis of entrance examinations (Portuguese: concurso público). It usually consists of a written test; some posts may require physical tests (such as policemen), or oral tests (such as professors, judges, prosecutors and attorneys). The rank according to the examination score is used for filling the vacancies.

Entrance examinations are conducted by several institutions with a government mandate, such as CESPE (which belongs to the University of Brasília) and the Cesgranrio Foundation (which is part of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro).

The labor laws and social insurance for civil servants are different from private workers; even between government branches (like different states or cities), the law and insurance differ.

The posts usually are ranked by titles, the most common are technician for high school literates and analyst for undergraduates. There's also higher post ranks like auditor, fiscal, chief of police, prosecutor, judge, attorney, etc.

The law does not allow servants to upgrade or downgrade posts internally; they need to be selected in separate external entrance examinations.
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