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This paper analyses how employers in three countries, Germany, the UK and Spain, experience and view apprenticeship. The focus is a single occupation - Vehicle Maintenance and Repair (Car Service) based on case studies and a representative employer survey carried out in the three countries. Apprenticeship is well-established in Germany and is strongly promoted by the UK government. In Spain, Car Service courses are full-time college courses which include a workplace internship.

German and UK firms are satisfied with the practical and theoretical content of apprenticeship programmes but case study evidence reveals that the workplace training element of apprenticeship makes heavy demands on firms' resources. Spanish courses demand less of employers but skills are less well-developed. While German Car Service firms train more apprentices than they immediately require, UK firms under-invest in apprenticeship citing the heavy time demands on experienced employees. Local employer associations in Germany ensure that firms act cooperatively to procure an adequate skill supply.

In the UK firms incur high recruitment costs as a result of skill shortages but refrain from apprenticeship through fear of poaching. Spanish firms value the internship period as a way of screening potential employees. Full-time college courses with a short internship are inadequate as a preparation for multi-skilled employment in an occupation with a strong technical knowledge base and electro-mechanical skills content. The UK should consider a different financing model for technical apprenticeships. In addition, increased labour market regulation and employer cooperation could encourage investment in apprenticeship.

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As skills of labor-market entrants are usually not directly observed by employers, individuals acquire skill signals. To study which signals are valued by employers, we simultaneously and independently randomize a broad range of skill signals on pairs of resumes of fictitious applicants among which we ask a large representative sample of German human-resource managers to choose. We find that signals in all three studied domains - cognitive skills, social skills, and maturity - have a significant effect on being invited for a job interview. Consistent with the relevance, expectedness, and credibility of different signals, the specific signal that is effective in each domain differs between apprenticeship applicants and college graduates. While [grade point averages] GPAs and social skills are significant for both genders, males are particularly rewarded for maturity and females for IT and language skills. Older HR managers value school grades less and other signals more, whereas HR managers in larger firms value college grades more.

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