The aim of this study is to identify the determinants of the self-employment of first-time applicants in Cameroon. To achieve this goal, we used data from the Second Survey of Employment and the Informal Sector (EESI 2) conducted by the National Institute of Statistics in 2012, and using a binary logit model, we achieved the following results: i) If we leave a first-time applicant who has at most a primary level of education for another secondary or higher level, the probability that the latter will be pushed towards self-employment decreases by 12% and 48% respectively. ii) A first-time applicant who comes from a household where at least one parent is an entrepreneur is 6% more likely to be an entrepreneur himself compared to a first-time applicant who has no entrepreneurial parent.