CV format in Pakistan (2026)

"Source" links the official, job-board, university or recruiter page we read. "Varies" means sources disagree; the sections below say how. "Common practice" is a convention, not a rule.

Mostly "CV". A Rozee.pk blog post on the difference concluded: "if you're living in Pakistan, CV would be the right choice", and suggested asking the recruiter if in doubt. (Rozee.pk blog) Mustakbil, one of the older Pakistani job portals, uses both words for the same thing. (Mustakbil.com)

What matters is the length, not the word. LUMS's career office draws the line the American way: a resume is one or two pages and common in industry; a CV can run to several pages and is for academia, research or graduate school. (LUMS Career Services Office) So when a Pakistani company asks for a CV, send the short version. Send the long one only for lecturer, research or PhD applications.

It is common, and it is optional. Most of the one-page CVs in UET Taxila's 2021 graduate book, written by final-year computer engineering students for recruiters, carry a passport-style photo. (UET Taxila, Department of Computer Engineering) Rozee.pk encourages a formal photograph on your profile but says uploading one is optional. (Rozee.pk) LUMS advises leaving photos off résumés for academic applications because they are "not standard internationally". (LUMS Career Services Office)

Our suggestion: for a local company that expects one, a plain, recent headshot is fine. For a multinational, a job abroad, or any application through an online form that reads your file, leave it off. The photo adds nothing a parser can read and uses space you need for your experience.

Older Pakistani CV formats put a block of personal details at the top: CNIC number, father's name, date of birth, domicile, marital status, religion. Most of that is now asked for elsewhere.

• Government jobs. FPSC's online application starts with your name, CNIC, date of birth and domicile, and later asks for your father's name and postal address; only the domicile entries a post allows are offered. (Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC)) The form collects all of this, so it doesn't need to be on a CV.
• Private employers. Your name, mobile, email, city and LinkedIn are enough. LUMS lists CNIC, marital status and photos as personal details to leave out of résumés for academic applications. (LUMS Career Services Office) Many local CVs still include a date of birth and postal address (UET Taxila, Department of Computer Engineering); both are optional.
• Your name. Spell it exactly as it appears on your CNIC and degree. HEC will not start a degree attestation unless the personal details on your CNIC and educational documents are identical (Higher Education Commission (HEC)), and employers' background checks compare the same documents.

If you are a student or fresh graduate, list your degree with its CGPA and scale, then Intermediate (FSc, FA, ICS, ICom or A Levels) and Matriculation (or O Levels) with the marks and the board. That is the pattern in the UET Taxila graduate CVs, for example "Intermediate (2015-2017) Percentage: 85%" with the board's name. (UET Taxila, Department of Computer Engineering) Once you have a few years of work, keep the degree and drop the school lines unless an employer asks for them (our suggestion).

Applying abroad? Degrees used outside Pakistan go through HEC attestation before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and school certificates through the Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC). (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pakistan) If yours are already attested, say so on the education line. For Gulf jobs, see our UAE CV guide.

Objective or summary. Pakistani student CVs usually open with a "Career Objective". (UET Taxila, Department of Computer Engineering) LUMS's advice is about impact: tailor the document to the job, and remember that many organisations screen with applicant tracking systems before a recruiter sees it. (LUMS Career Services Office) Our suggestion: replace a generic objective ("seeking a challenging position in a reputed organisation") with two lines that name the role and your best evidence.

References. LUMS says not to list references on the CV and to provide them only when asked. (LUMS Career Services Office) Most local CVs end with "References available upon request" (UET Taxila, Department of Computer Engineering); both approaches leave the names off.

Languages, salary and notice period. We found no Pakistani career-office guidance on these. Our suggestion: list English and Urdu with a level, plus a regional language (Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto, Saraiki, Balochi) when the job involves customers in that region; leave expected salary and notice period for the application form or the interview.

The job sites and government portals we checked on 24 October 2026:

• Rozee.pk: one of Pakistan's main job sites; you build a profile and upload your CV, and a profile photo is optional. (Rozee.pk)
• Mustakbil.com: a Pakistani job portal run by TechnoBird since 2004. (Mustakbil.com)
• BrightSpyre: a Pakistani job site where you build an online CV and apply to listed jobs.
• LinkedIn Jobs: job listings across Pakistan; recruiters also search profiles, so keep yours consistent with your CV.
• Indeed Pakistan: a job search engine that collects listings from many sites.
• National Job Portal: the government's National Job Portal.
• NEXT (NAVTTC): the National Employment Exchange Tool, a government job-matching portal; most of its listings were overseas jobs when we checked. (NAVTTC)

Federal government posts are applied for on FPSC's own online system, which is a structured form rather than a CV upload. (Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC)) Provincial commissions have their own portals; follow the advertisement.

1. Header. Full name as on your CNIC; mobile number; email; city; LinkedIn. For a local employer, a photo if you want one. No CNIC number, father's name, religion or marital status.
2. Summary or objective. Two lines: the role you want and the strongest reason to hire you. Name the field, a tool or two, and a result.
3. Experience. Latest job first: job title, company, city, month and year. Three to five bullets each, with numbers where you have them. Internships and final-year industrial training count for fresh graduates.
4. Education. Degree, university, year and CGPA with its scale; then Intermediate and Matric (or A and O Levels) with marks and board if you are early in your career.
5. Projects. Final-year project and other relevant projects, with what you built and the result. For engineering and IT graduates this is often the strongest section.
6. Skills and certifications. Tools, software and certifications the job ad asks for. Plain text, no skill bars.
7. Languages. English and Urdu with a level, plus any regional language you can work in.
8. References. "Available upon request", or nothing. Never list a referee without asking them.

A fictional fresh graduate applying to a software company in Lahore. Names, numbers and employers are made up; the layout is the point. No CNIC, father's name or religion.

HAMZA TARIQ
Lahore, Punjab | +92 300 1234567 | hamza.tariq@example.com | linkedin.com/in/example

SUMMARY
Computer science graduate who built a payments dashboard in React and Node.js
for a 3-month internship. Looking for a junior full-stack developer role.

EXPERIENCE
Software Engineering Intern, Example Tech (Pvt) Ltd, Lahore       Jun 2025 – Aug 2025
- Built 6 dashboard screens in React that the support team now uses every day
- Wrote API tests that caught 2 billing bugs before release

EDUCATION
BS Computer Science, Example University, Lahore, 2025 (CGPA 3.41/4.00)
Intermediate (ICS), Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Lahore, 2021 (82%)
Matriculation (Science), Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Lahore, 2019 (88%)

PROJECTS
Final-year project: Bus-route planner for Lahore Metro feeder routes (React Native)

LANGUAGES
English (Fluent) | Urdu (Native) | Punjabi (Native)

1. A government-form block on a private-sector CV. CNIC, father's name, domicile, religion and marital status belong on the forms that ask for them. On a CV for a company they take space and add nothing.
2. A generic career objective. "To work in a challenging environment" could open any CV. Name the role and what you bring instead.
3. Three pages for a first job. LUMS says one page is ideal for early-career positions. Cut school activities before you cut your projects.
4. Your name spelled three ways. Use the spelling on your CNIC and degree everywhere: CV, LinkedIn, job portals and email.
5. Designs a form can't read. Two-column layouts, icons for phone and email, and text inside images can come out scrambled when a portal fills in fields from your file.
6. Listing referees without asking them. Write "available upon request" or nothing, and ask people before you give their numbers.
7. A Word file that opens differently. Send a PDF unless the employer asks for Word, so the layout stays the same on their screen.

Resumity's 7 resume templates are free, single-column, and export to PDF and DOCX. For this market we would start with:

• FAANGPath: minimal, with skills above experience; a good fit for software and engineering graduates.
• Henrietta: education before skills, so your degree and school results sit high on the page.
• Catalyst: experience first and no summary block, for people with several years of work to show.

The PDF export is A4. None of the seven templates has a photo slot, so if a local employer expects a photo, add it in the DOCX version or upload it where the portal asks for one. Add a Projects section if you are a fresh graduate; all seven templates support it.

What we have tested: the text in PDFs exported from each template comes back intact when read by three open-source extractors (pdf.js, pdftotext and pypdf). We have not tested them in any employer's applicant tracking system. See how we test our templates.