Teachers' first employment is key to explain their final distribution in the system. Through a mixed method approach we study the factors that are related to the first job for teachers in Chile in schools with different regimes. Specifically, we consider teacher's socio-demographic and initial training -related characteristics, the application and hiring processes, and job characteristics. We find that teachers with a higher social capital are less likely to start teaching in public schools, and that participation in field experience during their initial training in a public school, increases the probability to teach in those contexts. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.