Not Ready for Your ICF Credential? Why It’s a Data Conversation

You have finished your coach training, you have done your mentor coaching, and your mentor coach tells you the recordings do not yet show enough evidence for your International Coaching Federation (ICF) credential. Or you are the mentor coach, and you are the one who has to say it. Either way, the words that land are “not ready,” and they can sound like a verdict on you as a coach.

I mentor coaches toward their ICF credentials, and I train the mentor coaches who complete the forms behind an ICF coaching credential. From the mentor coach’s side, this conversation is about evidence. The rules below apply across the three credentials, Associate Certified Coach (ACC), Professional Certified Coach (PCC) and Master Certified Coach (MCC), and I point out where a level differs. I cover what the form shows and where the gap usually is, then how the conversation goes, where my job ends and what happens if you are still not ready at the end.

What the Form Shows When You Are Not Ready

By the time we talk about it, the evidence is already on the form. The data adds up: there was enough evidence to say a competency (or a marker or a bar) was demonstrated, or there wasn’t. So it’s a data conversation, and readiness is a reading of that evidence for each competency in turn.

The math is the rule printed on ICF’s Competency Review Form, and the same rule appears on the form for every ICF credential. A skill counts as demonstrated when it is rated at a competent level in at least one observed session. A competency needs at least two-thirds (67%) of its skills demonstrated, and the two-thirds is counted inside each competency. The number of skills in each competency differs by level, so the threshold for one competency at ACC is not the same count as at PCC.

ICF publishes the Core Competencies, and each level observes them in its own way: the ACC BARS (Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales) at ACC, the PCC Markers at PCC and the MCC BARS at MCC. ICF's Accreditation Alignment and Compliance Guide asks for at least three Session Observation Forms and one Competency Review Form demonstrating at least 67% proficiency in all competency areas. You can see how those forms are laid out in the free forms Tandem publishes for each level, and our page on what ICF asks for at PCC covers the rest of that application.

The form reads what you did in one recording against the ICF Core Competencies and the ICF standards for your level. Your coaching hours do not appear on it, and neither do your years of coaching experience. A life coach and a coach who works in leadership coaching are observed the same way. What counts is whether each core competency shows up in the session.

Either the math works or it doesn’t.

Coaching Ethics and Coaching Mindset Sit Outside the Count

Two of the eight competencies work differently, so it helps to know them before you read your form. Competency 1, Demonstrates Ethical Practice, is a gate checked yes or no. It is not scored by markers or bars, and strength elsewhere cannot make up for it. If you are unsure what ethical practice asks of you, the ICF Code of Ethics is the place to read.

Competency 2, Embodies a Coaching Mindset, is not rated from the session at ACC or MCC. It is evaluated when you take the ICF Credentialing Exam, the written part of credentialing. ICF has said Competency 2 is not scored at PCC either. So at ACC, PCC and MCC alike, the two-thirds count runs across Competencies 3 to 8.

Where the Gap Usually Is: The Coaching Agreement or Competency 8

In my experience, when a coach is not ready, it’s usually one of two things. They didn’t do the coaching agreement, or they didn’t do Competency 8: the learning, the progress and the next steps. It’s really rarely anything else. There might be a marker or a bar, but for the most part they get those, especially after three sessions, when we’ve closed the gaps.

The coaching agreement is Competency 3, Establishes and Maintains Agreements. It is where the client and the coach settle what the session is for, what success would look like and which of the client’s coaching goals this conversation serves. When none of that is in the recording, the rest of the session has nothing to build on.

At PCC the effect is written into the guidance. In the ICF PCC Markers, marker 3.1 establishes the session goal, and if 3.1 is not observed, markers 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4 cannot be demonstrated either. Competency 3 has four markers at PCC and needs three of them, so a missing session goal leaves the whole competency short.

Competency 8, Facilitates Client Growth, covers the learning, the progress and the next steps. If the recording never gets to what the client learned and what they will do next, the form has no evidence of it, however strong the middle of the session was.

How the Conversation Goes: The Form, the Disappointment, the Plan

It happens when we review a recording together and go over the feedback. We look at the form, and the data is there. The coach can see which competencies had enough evidence and which did not, and what was missing from the session. It’s clear on the form.

They are disappointed, because they went through training, they went through mentoring and they’re not going to get their credential this time. ICF makes the credential decision. My forms record the evidence. So we talk about how to resolve it.

What needs to be resolved, and what do you need to focus on, learn and practice to build competency so you’re ready? Then you go practice that. When you’ve figured it out, you do another recording and we review it to see whether you’ve closed the gap. It just is what it is.

ICF expects this to happen sometimes. Its Accreditation Alignment and Compliance Guide says that when the 67% is not met, “additional mentor coaching sessions, and therefore additional mentor coaching observation forms, may be needed.” ICF has said there is no maximum number of forms, and that you receive a copy of every form your mentor coach completes. Before you plan extra sessions, read the ICF mentor coaching requirements for your level.

I did have one person get really mad one time, but that was a one-off.

Where ICF Level 1 and Level 2 Coach Training Ends and Mentor Coaching Begins

The coach training school’s job is to teach you to coach according to the BARS and the markers, the competencies ICF has put around each level of coaching. It teaches you, gives you feedback and lets you practice in an environment where you can get it wrong, learn and get feedback again.

That holds whatever your coaching education looked like. It might be an ICF Level 2 program, a Level 1 program, one of the other coaching programs with ICF accreditation, or courses from several places that were not all ICF accredited. An ICF-accredited coach training program and a patchwork of courses have the same job here: teaching you the ICF Core Competencies and Code of Ethics, and giving you practice with feedback.

When you get to the end and get to mentor coaching, my job is different. It’s the mentor coach’s job to help you refine those skills and competencies, and to close any gaps that have you below the competency level you want to get credentialed at. It’s not the mentor coach’s job to teach you what the school didn’t.

I’m helping them elevate what they’ve already learned. I’m not teaching them what they don’t know or what they weren’t taught.

ICF names this work in its Mentor Coaching Competencies. One of the six is Conducts Formative Appraisals, which evaluates the degree to which the mentor coaching client’s coaching aligns with the ICF Core Competencies. It assumes the coaching is already there to appraise. The coaching profession needs both jobs, the teaching and the refining, and they belong to different people.

When the Conversation Belongs in Supervision

I’m also not your supervisor. We may have a short conversation about what your struggle was, but it’s the struggle to meet the competency. Say a coach tells me, “Well, I was triggered, and I kept wanting to tell the client what to do.” Great. That’s a perfect conversation to have with a supervisor.

Mentor coaching stays with the competencies in the recording, and the trigger behind them is a conversation for supervision. Our article on where supervision and mentor coaching part ways covers the difference in more depth.

When a Coach Can’t Yet Do a Coaching Agreement

Sometimes the gap is bigger than refinement. A coach arrives for mentor coaching and cannot yet do a coaching agreement at all. When that happens, we go over the facts. If a school has sent them to me, I go back to the school with those facts.

I ask the school what happened. Have you given this coach feedback in class? Why don’t they know how to do a coaching agreement? The school needs to know, so it can refine its practices, and so coaches aren’t reaching a mentor coach without a skill their training was there to teach.

I can’t speak for how other schools run their classes. What I hold to is that the only way to build competency is to do it and get feedback on it. A coach who arrives without a coaching agreement needs more of that practice, and the place for it is coach training, before mentor coaching starts.

What the Mentor Coaching Agreement Settles Before the First Recording

A lot of what makes a not-ready conversation workable is decided before the first recording, in the mentor coaching agreement. We agree on what mentor coaching is and what the process is. We also agree on the things you already know you’re uncomfortable with, and the things you know you’re struggling with, that we need to focus on.

So we’re clear on the way we’re going to work together and what is needed, and then we just follow what we’ve already agreed on. When a recording later shows a gap, we are working inside a process we both agreed to.

ICF treats this as a competency of its own. The second of its six Mentor Coaching Competencies is Establishes and Maintains Mentor Coaching Agreements, which begins: “Partners with the mentor coaching client to create clear agreements about the mentor coaching…” The agreement also covers practical terms, such as what you send for each review, how the recordings are spaced and your mentor coach’s policy on extra sessions. Those are worth settling before you start.

If You Are Not Ready by the End of Mentor Coaching

If you aren’t ready by the end, you need to keep practicing until you’ve incorporated all the skills at the competency level you want for your credential. The plan stays the same when the planned sessions run out: focus, practice, another recording, another review.

On the portfolio path, the paperwork shows it. ICF has said that on the portfolio application path you submit only the Competency Review Form, and a subset of applications is audited for the Session Observation Forms behind it. If the evidence isn’t there, the Competency Review Form records that. I have written separately about what that form records when the evidence is not there yet.

If you were mentored to apply for a higher-level credential and the evidence isn’t there at that level, there is another route. ICF has said the evaluation can be redone at the lower level, and the same recordings can be reused, as long as your mentor coach holds the Mentor Coach Specialization at that lower level too. So a coach mentored toward PCC can be evaluated for ACC from the same sessions.

One date matters here as well. ICF has said that from April 1, 2027, new ACC and PCC portfolio applications no longer involve the recorded performance evaluation, which puts the evidence for those applications on the mentor coach’s forms.

If you are a mentor coach, or training to become one, this is the conversation you are preparing for: reading the evidence, saying plainly what the form shows, staying inside your role and agreeing up front on how you will work. It is a skill, and it can be learned. Our full training program for mentor coaches is a 71-hour live cohort I lead, accredited under ICF’s Advanced Accreditation in Mentor Coaching. Our guide to the ICF Mentor Coach Specialization explains what the specialization requires at each level.

Frequently Asked Questions About Not Being Ready