Dialogue: Entretien d'Embauche (B1)

A French job interview is a controlled environment for formal language. Every sentence in this dialogue is in vous, almost every request is softened with the conditional, and the questions choose their syntax with care: inversion when the recruiter wants to sound institutional, est-ce que when she wants to sound human. For a B1 learner this is the dialogue that brings together everything you have learned about register — and forces you to keep it consistent for an entire conversation.

This page walks through a complete entretien d'embauche line by line, explains why each form is in the register it is, and flags the half-dozen things English speakers most reliably get wrong.

The dialogue

Recruteuse : Bonjour, asseyez-vous, je vous en prie. Pourriez-vous vous présenter brièvement ? Candidat : Bien sûr. Je m'appelle Jean Dupont, j'ai trente ans, et j'ai une formation en marketing. Je travaille actuellement dans une agence de communication. Recruteuse : Très bien. Pourquoi voulez-vous travailler chez nous ? Candidat : Parce que votre entreprise a une excellente réputation dans le secteur, et j'aimerais évoluer dans un environnement plus international. Recruteuse : Quelles sont vos principales qualités ? Candidat : Je dirais que je suis dynamique, organisé et que je travaille bien en équipe. Recruteuse : Et vos défauts ? Candidat : Je suis parfois trop perfectionniste — il m'arrive de passer trop de temps sur les détails. Recruteuse : D'accord. Auriez-vous des questions à nous poser ? Candidat : Oui, j'aimerais savoir quelles sont les perspectives d'évolution au sein de l'équipe. Recruteuse : Très bonne question. Je vous propose d'en discuter avec le responsable du service. Nous vous recontacterons d'ici la fin de la semaine. Candidat : Je vous remercie de votre temps. Au revoir, madame.

A complete first-round interview, structured around the three classic moves: present yourself, motivate your application, demonstrate self-awareness.

Grammar in action

Vouvoiement throughout — the unmarked register of professional life

Every verb in this dialogue addressed to the other person is in vous. There is no slippage, no warming up to tu mid-conversation, no exception. This is not a stylistic choice — it is the only acceptable register in a French job interview, and it stays in place for the entire hiring process and often well into the first months of employment.

Note the structural consequences:

• Pourriez-vous vous présenter ? — the verb pouvoir in 2nd-person plural conditional, plus the reflexive pronoun vous of se présenter. Two vous in one short clause, both required.
• Voulez-vous travailler chez nous ? — inversion with vous, a marker of formal questions.
• Auriez-vous des questions ? — same pattern, this time with the conditional of avoir.

The English instinct is to drift toward tu once the conversation feels friendly. Resist it. Even if the recruiter laughs at your joke, you stay in vous until she explicitly proposes on peut se tutoyer — and even then, in many companies, only after the contract is signed.

Pourriez-vous, j'aimerais, je dirais — the conditionnel of politeness

The dialogue is saturated with the conditional. The recruiter says Pourriez-vous vous présenter ? (not Pouvez-vous). The candidate answers J'aimerais évoluer (not Je veux évoluer) and Je dirais que je suis dynamique (not Je dis).

Why? Because the conditional softens. A direct present tense in a formal request reads as blunt or even commanding. The conditional reframes the same content as a hypothesis — "if I had to say it" — and that hypothetical framing is exactly the polite buffer French expects in formal speech.

The four high-frequency politeness conditionals you must internalize:

• Je voudrais — "I would like" (in place of je veux, "I want")
• J'aimerais — "I would like / love to" (in place of j'aime or je veux)
• Pourriez-vous — "Could you" (in place of pouvez-vous, "Can you")
• Auriez-vous — "Would you have" (in place of avez-vous, "Do you have")

There is also je dirais que ("I would say that"), used to introduce an assessment in a non-categorical way. Very useful when you want to claim qualities about yourself without sounding boastful.

The pronunciation difference between j'aimerais (conditional) and j'aimerai (future) is real but subtle: traditionally, conditional has an open è /ɛ/ and future a closed é /e/. In casual modern speech this distinction is collapsing and most speakers pronounce them identically — context disambiguates.

Question forms across the register spectrum

French has three ways to ask a question, and an interview is one of the few situations where you will routinely encounter all three in the same conversation.

1. Inversion (most formal): subject pronoun moves after the verb, joined by a hyphen. Voulez-vous ? Pourriez-vous ? Auriez-vous ? Inversion is the unmarked formal pattern in writing and in professional speech.

2. Est-ce que (neutral, all registers): a fixed phrase prepended to a declarative sentence. Est-ce que vous avez des questions ? This works in formal and informal contexts and is the safest fallback when you are not sure which register fits.

3. Intonation only (informal): declarative word order with rising pitch. Vous avez des questions ? Acceptable in many spoken contexts, but in a job interview it can sound too casual coming from the candidate.

In our dialogue the recruiter mixes inversion (Pourriez-vous vous présenter ?, Voulez-vous travailler chez nous ?) with simple declarative-plus-interrogative-element forms (Et vos défauts ? — an elliptical question without a verb at all, common in conversational French even in formal settings).

Self-presentation patterns: je m'appelle, j'ai X ans, j'ai une formation en

The candidate's opening is a textbook self-presentation: Je m'appelle Jean Dupont, j'ai trente ans, et j'ai une formation en marketing. Three structures, all worth noting.

• Je m'appelle — pronominal verb s'appeler in 1st singular. Literally "I call myself". Never use Mon nom est… in conversation; that exists but sounds either translated-from-English or used only when filling out a form.
• J'ai trente ans — French uses avoir (not être) for age. Je suis trente ans is one of the most stubborn English-speaker errors. The verb is avoir, the noun ans is mandatory ("I have thirty years" is the underlying logic).
• J'ai une formation en marketing — une formation en X is the standard way to describe academic background. Note: en marketing, en gestion, en informatique — en
  • the field, no article. For specific degrees you would say un master en…, un diplôme de…

For the work-experience side, Je travaille dans + sector or company type is standard: je travaille dans une agence, dans la finance, dans le secteur public.

Pourquoi voulez-vous… ? — and why no subjunctive

The recruiter asks Pourquoi voulez-vous travailler chez nous ? English speakers who have just met the subjunctive often expect it after pourquoi on the assumption that "why" introduces a hypothetical. It does not.

Pourquoi takes the indicative. It introduces a real question about a real reason. The subjunctive only appears in French where a specific trigger demands it: vouloir que (when there are two different subjects), il faut que, bien que, avant que, judgment expressions like c'est dommage que, and so on. Pourquoi is none of these.

The candidate's answer also stays in the indicative: Parce que votre entreprise a une excellente réputation. Parce que (because) is a factual connector — it states a real cause — and it never triggers the subjunctive.

Compare with a sentence that would take the subjunctive: J'aimerais que votre entreprise soit plus internationale — here aimer que with two different subjects (I, the company) requires the subjunctive soit. The trigger is aimer que, not the content.

Chez nous, chez vous — the invisible workplace

The recruiter says travailler chez nous, the candidate would say je travaille chez Renault. The preposition chez — usually translated "at the home of" in textbooks — has a much broader French range. With companies and businesses it means "at" or "for": chez Google, chez L'Oréal, chez le médecin, chez le coiffeur.

The grammatical signature of chez is that it is followed only by a person, a profession, or a company name — never a place name. Chez Paris is ungrammatical; à Paris is correct.

In the interview register, chez nous is the standard way for a recruiter to refer to her own company without naming it: warmer than dans notre entreprise, more inclusive than à la société. Internalize the phrase — it appears in almost every interview.

Il m'arrive de + infinitive — the modesty hedge

When asked about flaws, the candidate says Il m'arrive de passer trop de temps sur les détails. The construction il arrive à quelqu'un de + infinitive literally means "it happens to someone to do X" — i.e., "I sometimes do X". It is one of French's most useful softening structures.

Why use it instead of a plain Je passe trop de temps ? Because the impersonal il arrive casts the behavior as occasional rather than habitual, and it shifts grammatical agency from the speaker to a vague "it happens" — the perfect frame for admitting a flaw without sounding like you have a chronic problem.

The structure: il + indirect object pronoun (me, te, lui, nous, vous, leur) + arriver + de + infinitive.

D'ici la fin de la semaine — temporal d'ici

The recruiter closes with Nous vous recontacterons d'ici la fin de la semaine. The preposition d'ici + a time expression means "by / within / before [that time]". It is forward-looking and frequent in professional contexts.

• d'ici demain — by tomorrow
• d'ici la fin du mois — by the end of the month
• d'ici une semaine — within a week

Compare with avant ("before") and dans ("in / from now"): dans une semaine means "one week from now" — a future point — while d'ici une semaine means "anywhere between now and one week from now". The two often translate identically into English but are not interchangeable in French.

Common mistakes

These are the predictable trip-ups for English speakers in a French job interview.

This is the highest-frequency error in interview self-presentations. Avoir is the verb for age in French (and Spanish and Italian — only English breaks ranks here). The noun ans is also mandatory.

The present-tense pouvez-vous is grammatically correct, but it lacks the buffer that French formality expects. In an interview, default to pourriez-vous. Same goes for voulez-vous → voudriez-vous and avez-vous → auriez-vous.

Parce que states a fact and always takes the indicative. The subjunctive (soit) appears only after specific triggers — and parce que is not one of them.

Je m'appelle is the only natural way to introduce yourself in spoken French. Mon nom est exists but is reserved for written contexts (forms, official documents) — using it in an interview signals that you are translating word-for-word from English.

The preposition for "at a company" is chez, not dans or à. Dans would suggest you literally work physically inside the building (which works for sectors — dans la finance, dans le marketing — but not for company names).

Key takeaways