The aim of this article is to address the lack of academic knowledge about public services in post-Soviet Georgia. Its attention is focused on the practices of career progression in public institutions in the context of meritocratic principles. In the new, ever-changing environment, with the inherited general mistrust of Soviet-type institutions, and at the time when formal democratic social institutions (formal and moral criteria of success) are still in the process of development, informal factors (protectionism, nepotism, etc.) still largely determine social-economic success. This article claims the prevalence of informal relationships over meritocratic principles in the Georgian public service management system, which hinders the process of making public service more effective, productive and transparent.