Reduced relative clauses with present perfect forms

Solution 1:

Please correct me if I’m reading your question wrong here, but to me it seems that the crux of the confusion stems from the seemingly a-grammatical nature or meaning shift in changing:

Applicants who have passed the exam go through to the interview.

To

Applicants passing the exam go through to the interview.

I would like to point out a feature of the perfective that appears to have been forgotten in the other answers. The perfective helping verb have can also undergo mutation to fit the grammatical needs of a sentence. Therefore, I propose that the reduced relative clause most matching your original sentence would be:

Applicants having passed the exam go through to the interview.

The question of whether this would be used more in speech or in writing I believe is a secondary, though equally important question, though outside the scope of this post.