Listen up, I've got an announcement. I have just accepted a job at a company which cannot be named Pharmaceuticals as a Production Engineering Management Graduate (whew, what a mouthful). After going through an interview and an assessment centre, the powers that be have decided I'm the one for the job.

The basic outline is that a company which cannot be named have been looking for a new production manager to join their team and having little luck (after interviewing like 20 people), so they have gone back a step and looked for a graduate. The theory is that I will start out learning the ropes and as I go on, will be given more and more responsibility. They are hoping that I will slide into the production manager position within 18 months, so I feel I have big shoes to fill.

The downside is a bit of a commute. It is based in Horsham (about an hour on the train each way from our house) but I'm hoping to be able to work on the train. The upside is that I will be going against the flow of commuters so will have the train to myself most of the time.

There were 8 initial candidates that were interviewed, 3 got to the assessment centre, and I'm not sure if they hired 1 or 2 of us (will have to wait til I get there). The assessment centre involved an hour interview, a 20 minute presentation, a team exercise, a numerical reasoning test, an oral reasoning test and a factory tour (I was very tired by the end of the day) The annoying thing about the way that hiring is done in this country is that it is all through a recruitment agency, so finding out about the terms of the contract involved a lot of phonecalls from me to my recruitment lady to a company which cannot be named to my recruitment lady and finally back to me.

I will definitely be sad to leave behind my job at Conoco Phillips as I have made quite a few friends here and it is a great environment with great benefits, but working here has made me realise that I'm not really thrilled about finance.

They wanted me to start ASAP, but I feel a bit obligated to help out my boss, Katy, at Conoco Phillips and then we are off to Spain for a week at the end of the month and off to Germany mid September, so I'll start on the 27th of September.