What French Employers Actually Ask For: Skill by Skill, From Real Job Ads

Job ads often talk in generalities: "team player," "motivated," "good communication." But when you look at what French employers actually list as required skills in their postings, a much more concrete picture appears. Below is a breakdown by role, based on the specific skills that appear most often in job postings on NewLuxJob across France.

Skilled trades: what gets named first

In electrician postings (785 in total), Installation appears in 86% of ads, Maintenance in 51%, Wiring in 35%, and Troubleshooting in 30%. For welders and metalworkers (1,112 postings), Welding leads at 84%, followed by TIG/WIG at 42%, Blueprint Reading also at 42%, and MIG/MAG at 39%. Construction trades postings (885 in total) most often ask for Renovation (40%), Construction (29%), Masonry (27%) and Blueprint Reading (23%). Mechanics (1,112 postings) see Diagnostics and Maintenance tied at 70% each, Repair at 61%, and Automotive knowledge at 33%.

The pattern across trades: one dominant, job-defining skill (Installation, Welding, Diagnostics) is named in the large majority of ads, while more specific sub-skills appear in a smaller but still meaningful share.

Office and finance roles

For Accountant/Auditor postings (886 in total), Tax appears in 49% of ads and Auditing in 40%, ahead of VAT (24%) and Excel (23%). Finance roles (560 postings) ask for Budgeting in 41% of ads, Excel in 39%, Treasury in 36%, and Controlling in 33%. Legal postings (1,088 in total) name Contract Law in 79% of ads, well ahead of Drafting (45%) and Litigation (23%). HR/Recruiter postings (1,026 in total) are dominated by Recruiting itself at 95%, with Onboarding at 31%, Sourcing at 26%, and Payroll at 24%.

Excel shows up across several of these categories (23% for accountants, 39% for finance roles), suggesting it remains a baseline expectation rather than a specialist skill in office-based hiring.

Tech and data roles

Data Analyst postings (668 in total) list SQL as the top skill at 55%, with Python close behind at 45%, then Power BI at 23% and Machine Learning at 20%. Software Developer postings (651 in total) spread more evenly: Java at 38%, Agile/Scrum at 35%, CI/CD at 29%, Angular at 24%, SQL at 23%, and Git at 22%.

Compared to the trades and office categories above, tech postings show less concentration on a single skill and more emphasis on a working set of tools and methods.

Hospitality, care and frontline roles

Cook/Chef postings (1,103 in total) ask for Kitchen skills in 91% of ads and Hygiene in 72%, with HACCP named in 43%. Waiter/Hospitality postings (1,117 in total) list Service at 94% and POS/Till at 37%. Childcare postings (817 in total) most often name Pedagogy (58%) and Childcare itself (51%), with Child Development further down at 9%. Cleaning postings (1,026 in total) name Cleaning in 92% of ads and Hygiene in 51%, with Disinfection at 24%.

Hygiene-related skills recur across several of these categories: 72% in cooking roles, 51% in cleaning roles, and also present in childcare and healthcare listings, pointing to it as a cross-cutting requirement in frontline service work.

What this means for your CV

If you're applying for one of these role types in France, the skills named most often in postings are the ones worth stating explicitly and near the top of a CV, not implying through job titles alone. In sales postings (138 in total), for example, Negotiation is named in 44% of ads and Cold Calling in 38%, so a candidate with cold-calling experience should say so directly rather than folding it into "sales experience." Similarly, marketing postings (654 in total) name Content skills in 57% of ads and Social Media in 41%, ahead of Copywriting at 34%.

Matching your CV's language to the specific skill terms employers actually use, rather than paraphrasing them, is a simple way to align with what these postings are asking for.