The Morocco Concours File Checklist: What Every Portal Actually Asks For
A practical checklist of the documents and formats Moroccan concours portals commonly require, so you can prepare everything before the deadline crunch.
Every concours portal is a little different, but after seeing enough of them, a pattern shows up. Here's what to have ready before you start filling out any application — so you're not scrambling to fix a file format at 11 PM the night it's due.
The usual documents
- ID photo — recent, plain background (usually white), specific pixel dimensions (commonly 35×45mm), under a size limit (often 100–200 KB).
- CIN (national ID card), front and back — sometimes as two separate images, sometimes merged into a single PDF.
- Signature — scanned or photographed, ideally with a transparent background so it doesn't show a visible paper edge or shadow when placed into a form.
- Diploma(s) / academic transcripts — as PDF, often with a strict size cap per file (500 KB–2 MB is typical).
- CV — as PDF, rarely size-restricted but format-restricted (no .docx, PDF only).
- Cover letter / motivation letter — same as CV, usually PDF.
Formats that trip people up
| Document | Common trap | Fix | |---|---|---| | ID photo | Saved as HEIC from an iPhone | Convert to JPG first | | CIN scan | Photographed at full camera resolution, way over the limit | Compress to the exact KB target | | Diploma PDF | Multi-page scan from a phone app, 10+ MB | Compress the PDF to the stated limit | | Signature | Has a white/gray background instead of transparent | Use a transparent signature tool | | CIN front + back | Portal wants one PDF, you have two separate photos | Merge images into one PDF |
A sane order of operations
- Gather the raw photos/scans first, don't process anything yet.
- Convert any HEIC files to JPG.
- Crop each photo to just what's needed (headshot, signature, document — not the whole desk it was photographed on).
- Compress each file to the exact size the portal specifies — not "as small as possible," the exact number, so you keep the best quality that still fits.
- Assemble into PDF if the portal wants one file instead of several.
- Do one final check: open every file you're about to upload and actually look at it. A corrupted or cropped-wrong file is worse than a slightly-over-limit one.
Every step above can be done for free, entirely in your browser, without uploading your documents anywhere — which matters, since these are exactly the kind of documents you don't want floating around on a random file-conversion site's server.