The skills file: what your client looks for

A skills file (in France, the dossier de compétences) presents a consultant to a client for one specific assignment. It looks like a CV, but it answers a different question. The CV says who the person is. The skills file says why they fit this particular need.

How it differs from a CV

The CV belongs to the consultant: they write it for themselves, for every role they might apply to. The skills file belongs to the firm. It follows the firm's own template, is often anonymised, and is rewritten for every tender: the assignments that matter to this client come first, and the skills they require are named in their words.

That rewriting is what takes time. Several Paris-based IT consultancies we interviewed spend 1 to 1.5 hours per file when it is tailored by hand.

The sections clients expect

Templates vary from one firm to the next, but clients almost always find the same sections:

1. The header: the consultant's name or initials, a job title aligned with the one in the brief, years of experience and availability.
2. The summary: three to five lines linking the consultant's background to the need. If they do not speak to the assignment on offer, the rest of the file starts at a disadvantage.
3. The skills: functional, technical, methods and tools, grouped by family rather than in a single list.
4. The assignments: for each one, the client's sector, the dates, the role, the context, the achievements and the technical environment (tools, technologies, standards).
5. Education and certifications, then languages, with their level.

What the client compares

Your client compares the file with their tender. Requirement by requirement, they look for proof that the consultant has done it before.

They first check whether the job title and summary match the role. Then they look in recent assignments for the same kind of project, the same sector or the same technical environment. A skill that appears in the list but in none of the assignments carries little weight: nothing shows where it was used.

What gets a file rejected

• The generic file, sent unchanged for several needs: the summary talks about everything except the assignment on offer.
• The list of technologies without context: thirty tools in a row, with no way of telling which were actually used, for how long or for what.
• Unrelated assignments at the top, while the relevant experience sits on page three.
• Inconsistencies: overlapping dates, a job title that changes from one page to the next, a seniority level the assignments do not support.
• Incomplete anonymisation: a name left in a header, a client named when it should have been masked.

The checklist before you send

Before sending a file, check that:

1. The job title matches the one in the brief.
2. The summary names the two or three main requirements of the tender and shows how the consultant meets them.
3. Every required skill appears in at least one assignment.
4. The assignments closest to the need come first.
5. The client's words are used where they describe what the consultant actually did, never to fill a gap.
6. Dates, job titles and levels are consistent from one page to the next.
7. If the file is anonymised, no name of a person or a masked client remains, including in the Word file's properties.

With Prizm for Business

Prizm for Business does this rewriting from the consultant's CV: it reads the tender, picks the assignments that matter, rewords them in the client's language and sorts the skills, in your Word template, named or anonymised. Your sales team reviews, adjusts and sends.

The clearest way to judge is to see it on one of your own tenders: a 15-minute demo, then 5 free skills files for your next responses.