In a world where innovation assumes the strategic role of organizations and countries, the training of people, particularly engineers, is fundamental for debates that present its advantages and disadvantages. The present study will examine what happens to Production Engineering students at the Federal University Fluminense who are newly graduated and/or are about to graduate in relation to the alignment between the expectations of their probable employers and their own perceptions of the acquired knowledge and skills during the course. The research strategy used was the case study, on the one hand we collected data from three companies of different sectors through focal groups which involved the managers responsible for recruitment and selection and, on the other hand, through a survey applied to students under the circumstances of the examination. The results showed that there are significant mismatches between business demand and students’ perceptions of what has been offered to them and what they effectively dominate.

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