Finbar

Microsoft think long term. It's more about your training and development as a person. That's always key in any meetings I have with my manager or my senior manager. It's about where I want to go and what he or she needs to do to get me there. The difference we have between business and technical is that the training that we receive within the grad programme is very generalised, so we do general training in relation to presentation skills, group/team collaboration and the like. After that, it's more in your own personal role within your department that you focus on your area.

From the cultural perspective, there is a very Microsoft feel about things. I remember when I joined, I got this sort of buzz when I went to the canteen or just walked around. People are always – not so much in a hurry – but everyone's got laptops in their hands, there's meetings going on everywhere around the canteen, and it's definitely a get up and go attitude.

In everything I do, there's always this drive to be world class. There's always a drive to be number one. And when you come in, you're seen at a level with everyone else, even though you could have five or ten years' less experience. We're taken in as the top business graduates in the country, and that's what we're seen as within Microsoft. So, from day one, we're given responsibility, we're given a role, and we're told you own this particular role.

At the moment I'm working in Operations on the Supply Chain side of things, and I really enjoy that. But I also specialised in Marketing at College, so at the same time as doing my own job, I'm also listening out for and picking up on different things that the marketing people are doing and the ideas that they're flowing through. So maybe that's something that I'll move into. But at the moment I'm just concentrating on Supply Chain and building up that knowledge.

I think the next big area of development is in what people call the ‘Cloud Model'. So it'll be interesting to see how consumers embrace having information saved out in the worldwide web – in the ‘clouds', up in the air. I'll also be interested to see how Microsoft can develop our products to match what our competitors are doing and integrate them all with the Operating System.