A skills assessment at age 55 helps you decide on your final years of work: changing careers, adapting your current role, or preparing for retirement. It lasts approximately three months and can be funded by your CPF (Personal Training Account) as long as you are not yet retired.
At Aktasens, we offer the "Choosing Yourself" package for this stage: 10 sessions and 18 hours of support.
A skills assessment at 55 It helps you decide what to do next, whether it's changing careers, structuring your final years of work, or preparing for retirement. At this age, the question is no longer just «"What kind of job should I do?"», it becomes: «"What do I want to keep, what do I want to stop doing, and what have I never dared to do before?"»
In this article, we first answer the question we are asked most often: Is it still useful at my age? Then we detail what the assessment allows you to check for a career change, how it helps to prepare for retirement, its process, its financing and our formula for this step.
Is it useful to have a skills assessment done at 55?
Yes. At 55, you often have several years of work left before retirement, and you can better choose the end of your career when you know what you want to keep from it.
The people who come to see us at this age do so for very different reasons. : a growing weariness, professional burnout, the desire to pass on what they know, a reorganization in the company that reshuffles the cards, or an approaching retirement without them knowing what to put in place.
At the first date, we often hear the same phrase: «"At my age, I already know myself well enough; I don't need to do any personal exploration.".
That's partly true: you have years of experience, successes, and choices behind you.
But knowing yourself and being able to name what you can do are two different things. After 30 years in your career, many skills become so ingrained that they go unnoticed. A skills assessment helps to put them into words, and it's often at this point that confidence returns.
The assessment remains possible as long as you are not retired, and your CPF can finance it until then.
Changing careers at 55: what an assessment can confirm
A skills assessment helps you verify that a new job is realistic before you commit.
Three points are particularly important at this age:
- The first one is your transferable skills This refers to the skills you've learned in one profession that are applicable elsewhere. A project manager knows how to organize, negotiate, and manage a budget. A salesperson knows how to listen and persuade. These skills can be identified during the skills assessment, using tools like MOTIVA for concrete professional interests.
- The second one is the’field survey. You meet people who work in the field that interests you, you discover their daily lives, their challenges, and how they got there. This is the step that transforms a desire into a project, or that helps you avoid a mistake.
- The third one is the training time Considering the years you have left, a two-year training program at age 56 can make sense if the profession will support you until retirement, and even beyond. It makes less sense if it leaves you little time to practice it.
You might be wondering what careers are accessible after age 55. The answer depends on your background, your aspirations, and your situation, and that's precisely what a career assessment is for. A ready-made list won't tell you what's right for you.
Preparing for retirement with a skills assessment
When departure approaches, taking stock helps to build life after, beyond the choice of a profession.
We look with you at what you want to keep (activities, a role, relationships), what you want to start (volunteering, an independent activity, passing on your know-how) and how you want to organize your time.
Michel, 60, an engineer in a large energy company, came to see us for this reason. He didn't want to find himself with nothing to do once he retired, and he didn't know what to do. At the end of his career review, he agreed to continue working part-time as a consultant for his company. In addition, he opened a bed and breakfast and volunteered at his local bicycle repair shop.
Anonymized route
The most common mistake we see is waiting until the last year of one's career to plan for the next step. People put it off, telling themselves they'll see when the time comes, preferring not to think about it. Then retirement arrives, and there's no time left to test anything.
An appointment can serve as a benchmark: the career development interview that your employer must organize within the 2 years before age 60 (Article L6315-1 of the Labour CodeIt addresses job retention and end-of-career arrangements, such as part-time work or phased retirement. A pre-interview assessment will help you arrive with a plan rather than a list of questions.
If it's primarily the personal aspect of leaving that concerns you, we've written an article to help you... preparing for retirement psychologically.
What happens during a skills assessment at age 55?
Like any skills assessment, it takes place in 3 phases, over approximately 3 months.
- The preliminary phase It is used to analyze your request and adapt the support to your situation.
- During the investigation phase, You explore your interests, motivations, values, skills, and personality, then you test your ideas against reality through...’field survey.
- The concluding phase will leave you with a written summary and an action plan.
A follow-up interview takes place 6 months after the end of the assessment.
What changes at this age is the content of the exchanges.
We explore the same dimensions as with a classic assessment: life history, skills, motivations, emotional intelligence.
But the focus is on the last 5 to 10 years of one's career and the transition to retirement.. We also talk about rhythm, health, transmission and life project.
And we are not limiting ourselves to professional projects: volunteering, community involvement, leisure activities, humanitarian or public missions are among the possibilities.
How much does a skills assessment cost and how can it be financed?
The CPF can finance a skills assessment up to 1 600 €, as long as you are not retired.
This cap has been in effect since February 26, 2026. A contribution of €150 remains your responsibility, unless you are a job seeker or your employer contributes to your CPF (Personal Training Account). Another condition: you must not have had a skills assessment financed by public funds in the last 5 years (source: Public Service, fact sheet "Personal Training Account (CPF)"«).
Other funding options exist: your employer, your OPCO, France Travail or your personal funds, alone or in combination.
Aktasens is Qualiopi certified and listed on Mon Compte Formation.
All the solutions are detailed on our page for finance your skills assessment. And if retirement is approaching, our article explains how. using your CPF before retirement.
Choosing Yourself: Our Skills Assessment for This Stage
For this step, we recommend Choosing Yourself : 10 sessions and 18 hours of support over approximately 3 months, for 2 350 €, which can be financed by the CPF.
This approach allows time to explore in depth and test your ideas in the field..
It includes one module of your choice: Trust (emotional intelligence with EQ-i 2.0), Reconnect (Human Design and Gene Keys), Emergence (4 coaching sessions after the assessment), New impetus (4 neurofeedback sessions) or Performance (neuroscience with OMIND Impulse).
You can have your assessment done in person in Lyon Part-Dieu, Genas, Châtillon-d'Azergues, Miribel or Thil, or choose a skills assessment via video conference, wherever you are in France.
The full program is on the page of our skills assessment Choosing Yourself.
«Towards the end of my career, I continued to be very involved in my work. But one thought kept coming back: what if I had missed out on something? Changing careers at that age seemed unrealistic. Taking stock allowed me to put words to all of that: the skills I had developed, the desires I had put aside. I didn't give up everything. I finally made time for a creative activity I had always postponed, and I got involved in a non-profit organization. Today, my work no longer defines me entirely.»
Patrice, 58 years old (Anonymized profile)
In 2025, our beneficiaries gave a satisfaction rating of 4.8/5 at the end of the assessment..
Our completion rate is 100 %, and 81 % 6-month follow-up interviews were conducted.
The first appointment is free and without obligation : 30 minutes to talk about your situation and see if the assessment is the right step for you.
Your questions
At any point in your working life. At 55, it's especially useful for deciding how you'll end your career: staying on with adjustments to your current position, changing careers, or preparing for retirement. The earlier you do it, the more time you have to explore your options.
The one that serves your project. The assessment helps you define this project before choosing a training program, so you don't embark on a long path that doesn't lead you where you want to go. Our article on using your CPF (Personal Training Account) before retirement then explains how to finance it.
Both are possible. Some people emerge with a new professional project, others with a personal project (volunteer work, creative activity, involvement in associations) that rebalances their relationship with work without giving everything up.
Yes, as long as you are not retired, the CPF (Personal Training Account) can finance it. The assessment then helps you prepare for life after retirement: your activities, your pace, and your commitments.
