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The launch in the 1990s of training for engineers in an apprenticeship format, an option long reserved for struggling students (Moreau 2008), sparked curiosity in the academic and professional worlds. The development of this option in the elitist and hierarchical system of the “grandes écoles” raises issues with regard to recognizing and assessing these “new” engineers’ skills. Taking a comprehensive approach, we draw on interviews with apprenticeship-trained engineers who have recently entered the labor market to analyze their perceptions of the selection process used in the labor market. We identify several strategies selected by these engineers to make the best of this “difference” from their colleagues trained in the conventional way.