The French skills assessment

1. Understand the French framework

The bilan de compétences is a French scheme to analyse skills and define a career or training project. It includes preliminary, investigation and conclusion phases, with a summary. Its maximum duration is 24 hours.

Funding and procedures depend on your situation and when you undertake it. Check Service Public and your provider before committing. French CPF funding includes conditions and limits; a quoted price does not establish funding approval.

2. Define what you expect

Write down the question that leads you to consider an assessment. Do you want to understand dissatisfaction, explore another occupation, prepare training or find a direction? Separate a difficulty in your current position from a wish to change the work itself.

Ask the provider how they will address that question, who will support you and what you will receive. Check the place of independent work, the rhythm of conversations and how options will be tested against real conditions.

3. Start with your own history

In his coaching approach, Laurent Pitigliano suggests beginning with the person’s own account. Review experiences you consider important, professional or otherwise. Note choices, satisfying moments, difficulties and changes of direction.

The account need not be literary or exhaustive. It helps reveal recurring patterns and changes. You decide which details to share. Personal reflection does not replace the framework of the regulated French assessment.

4. Examine expectations and constraints

Beyond what you can do, ask what you would like to find in your work. Use examples: an activity, relationship, rhythm or environment. Connect an interest to a real situation rather than a general word.

Add what needs to remain possible during a transition: income, workplace, training time or personal responsibilities. The aim is to develop several hypotheses compatible with your circumstances.

5. Try a self-reflection exercise

This coaching exercise adapts Kuhn and McPartland’s Twenty Statements Test (1954). The thirty-answer adaptation is not a validated psychometric test and produces no score or diagnosis. You may prefer a different way to describe your experience.

6. Compare your self-image with evidence

An idea about yourself can help you move forward, but compare it with examples. For a quality you claim, find a situation where it was useful. For a perceived limitation, look for a counterexample and the conditions in which it appears.

A conversation with a trusted person or professional can add another perspective. They do not have the final word on your identity. The aim is to enrich your hypotheses rather than lock you into a label.

7. Move from reflection to exploration

Keep two or three options and note what you still need to learn: daily activities, entry conditions, skills, opportunities and constraints. Identify a person or source for each question. A career conversation or work immersion can extend your investigation.

The French CEP can provide free help developing a career project. In a separate framework, Jobiwan offers tools to clarify options and prepare applications. This page claims neither a regulated French skills assessment nor CPF eligibility for Jobiwan.

Sources and guidance