This article deals with the involvement of employers in improving the educational process and active participation in the training of qualified mid-level specialists. All this solves the problem of the isolation of knowledge that graduates receive from practical actions, manifested in the inability to handle modern technological equipment, in psychological unpreparedness for the realities of hard working days, to the management of subordinates, to the norms of behavior. Effective interaction between an educational organization and an employer is one of the topical issues of modern vocational education, which implies integrated actions of the parties interested in this fact. The article notes the need for interaction between the educational organization of secondary professional education and enterprises to improve the eff ective training of graduates, functioning in market conditions. The main mechanisms for organizing a social partnership system as a condition for improving the quality of professional education are presented on the example of an educational organization, the Chita College of Railway Transport of ZABIZHT IrGUPS. The partnership was considered in the field of career guidance and targeted training through new formats of career guidance and a system of long-term personnel planning, in the field of implementing the modernization of the material and technical equipment of the educational and laboratory base through innovative training complexes and branded zones, in the field of educational work and research activities, through creation of an optimal socializing environment and participation in competitive, championship movements.