As there are 3 steps to clear the exam, every stage has a cut off to enter into the next step. A candidate needs to clear all the 3 steps individually to select as an IES Officer. If a candidate fails to clear the IES Pre Exam, He/She will not be permitted to write the IES Main Exam. To clear each of the 3 steps, the commission decides a cut-off, on the basis of the IES Cutoff list the candidate promoted to the next step. The IES Cut Off for Preliminary Exam will be decided by the Union Public Service Commission out of 500 marks. Candidates, who will clear the cutoff, will be eligible to write IES Mains Exam.
For the mains exam, UPSC will further release cutoff marks out of 600 to process the candidates to 3rd step. Candidates who will secure marks equal or greater than the cutoff marks will be called for the Personality Test/Interview.
After the conduction of Personality Test, Union Public Service Commission will release the final IES Cutoff marks out of 1300 marks after the announcement of final results. UPSC will release a consolidated list of selected candidates based on the category and the discipline. The selected candidates based on the final merit list will be posted as engineers in Ministry/Departments under the Government of India.