New graduates are often placed into project management roles, but may face challenges in these roles. This study surveyed managers from Brazilian organizations and gathered information on the environment, practices and results of projects where new graduates were in project management roles. In-depth interviews were executed with a subset of these managers to further collect insights into issues surrounding new graduates’ performance in project management. This paper examines the preparation and performance of new graduates in project management roles. It addresses specific project management skills and competencies that are involved in delivering successful projects and how these relate to project success or failure. The conclusions determined that new graduates are often not fully prepared for project management roles and fail to conduct comprehensive project preparations, often missing risk management; their soft skills are not fully developed creating further challenges; and the corporate environment towards project management may not lead to developing well-prepared project managers.