It is widely believed that apprenticeships lead to better employment outcomes. This column presents the results of a field experiment conducted in France to show that apprentices do not perform significantly better than vocational students when they look for jobs outside the firm in which they trained. This means that the positive effects of apprenticeship on youth employment come from the retention of apprentices in their training firms. If the effectiveness of apprenticeship is the creation of better matches between labor market entrants and jobs, policies should focus more on the collaboration between schools and public employment services.