The seventh national plan (1976-80) in France provided for development of indicators describing initial labor market entry and the place of young people in recruitments. The National School-to-Work Transition Observatory was created in response to the desire to have a permanent system of information on youth labor market entry. "Snapshot" surveys describing employment status 9 months after the end of studies were set up in the mid-1970s. At the beginning of the 1980s, the first analyses resulting from the retrospective advancement surveys introduced the longitudinal dimension and brought out the complexity of the transition between initial training and employment. New developments led to the transformation of the observation instrument and the choice of new options. The demand for evaluation changed for these reasons: processes of youth labor market entry were becoming increasingly complex; it became indispensable to study the situation of beginners in the employment systems; and institutional changes affected the scope of vocational training. Among the new options for observing the school-to-work transition, the following were chosen: a focus on young people and the employers; a survey analyzing the paths four years after leaving school, regardless of the level; creation of standard itineraries representing modal paths after training; and double processing of apprenticeship. The mechanism being set up would allow new angles of analysis to be integrated into the previous version. (YLB)