Almost everyone, inside and outside schools, seems to have anecdotes to tell and opinions to share about work experience placements in Transition Year (TY). There are occasional stories of life-changing insights being gained. You may have listened to horror accounts of blatant exploitation. In between, a great variety of tales abound, revealing how work experience has become a feature of the lives of almost all Irish teenagers. However, little is known about how host organisations – employers and those providing community services – view placements. That prompted Aidan Clerkin of the Educational Research Centre in Drumcondra, Dublin and myself to explore this issue. Existing research into TY reveals that young people identify work experience as among the programme’s most valuable aspects. For many 15–16-year-olds, opportunities to gain short-term, practical experience of out-of-school working environments – unpaid and supervised by non-teachers - can be very beneficial. Placements provide insights into workplace realities, develop work skills, and inform educational and career decision-making. According to the International Labour Organisation, such experiences enable young people to explore different types of work and develop motivation, independence and self-confidence. Perhaps because each school has freedom to shape their own TY programme, work experience placements have evolved in an ad hoc manner over the past five decades. Sometimes, students source placements themselves, including through family or community networks, and sometimes the school plays a more active role. Often, the relationships between schools and host organisations remain loosely structured. Our study explores the experiences of eleven organisations hosting TY students. While these organisations could be described as ‘large’, the valuable contributions made by many smaller, local employers, who also offer meaningful TY placement opportunities throughout the country, should not be ignored. There is a strong sense of goodwill and civic responsibility among placement providers to support young people in engaging with workplaces. However, the findings reveal significant ambiguities concerning the educational purpose of placements and the nature of school-employer relationships.