Direct Recruitment to the Special Class Railway Apprentices' is made through the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on the basis of the Annual Competitive Examinations. Recruitment to the Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) and the Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS) is done on the basis of the result of the Civil Services Examination (The Indian Administrative service examination) and that to the Indian Railway services of Engineers (IRSE), Indian Railway  Service of Electrical  Engineers (IRSEE) and Indian Railway Services Stores (IRSS) is made on the basis of the Combined Engineering Service Examination.

Recruitment of Clerks, Assistant Station masters, Ticket Collectors, train Collectors and other vacancies is also done through direct recruitment by the Railway Recruitment Boards in different states. Depending upon the vacancies that arise, these boards call out for  exams for different posts. These Boards are located  at 19 centres in Allahabad (www.rrbald.nic.in), Ahmedabad, Ajmer( www.rrbajmer.org), Chandigarh, Jammu, Gorakhpur, Patna (www.rrbpatna.org) , Guwahati, Calcutta, Bhubaneswar( www.rrbbbs.org), Chennai (www.rrbchennai.net), Trivandrum, Bangalore, Secunderabad (www.rrbsc.org), Mumbai, Bhopal , Malda, Ranchi etc. The Boards advertise the vacancies through newspapers and the Employment News and conduct both written examinations and interviews. Recruitment is made in the lowest grades to these categories and prescribed qualification is generally matriculation. For some posts like Commercial Apprentice, Traffic Apprentice, Asstt. Station Master, Clerk Grade I, guards etc., prescribed qualification is  a degree from a recognised University.

For Recruitment  to the Indian Railway Service Mechanical Department, there is a dual method, one is by Combined Engineering Service Examination and the other is UPSC Special Class Railway Apprentices' Examination. Approximately, 50 percent are recruited as the Special Class Railway Apprentices through the U.P.S.C. Exam. This examination is held once a year, generally in the month of July. Blank application forms and other particulars are published in Employment News, generally in the month of February.