Gopalakrishnan is a career civil service  Officer from the Indian Administrative Services (lAS) since 1991. In India, he has worked at state and central government in areas such as Transport, Human Resource Development, Trade & Commerce, Food, Information technology, Health etc. He conducted the 2011 Census of India for the state of Tamilnadu. Presently, he is the Chairman of Staff Selection Commission - a recruitment body mandated to conduct recruitment for various entities in the Government of India.