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Showing posts with label first internship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label first internship. Show all posts

Monday, March 12, 2012

About to begin your first job? Or first internship? Here are 20 tips:

On June 1 last year Atul Chitnis, one of India's best-known technologists, posted a list of 20 tips on Twitter for people starting their first job that day. He wrote on his blog some months later that the list was partly or fully re-posted all across the web, but "people keep asking me for a link to the tips. So I guess I should post them here on my own blog as well".

Of the 20 tips, here are my favourites:
  • This is not school/college. You won’t lose marks because you don’t know something. You WILL if you don’t say so!
     
  • Don’t be afraid of stating an opinion — be afraid of NOT stating one. You could be wrong, but won’t know if you don’t pipe up!
     
  • Employers aren’t really looking for a bunch of yes-(wo)men. But they aren’t looking for a bunch of revolutionaries, either.
     
  • Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, especially if you are young. You will thank me for this advice.
     
  • Dare to look beyond your given assignment. “Good enough” never is. 
And I wholeheartedly endorse what Chitnis says at the end:
  • While you may ignore all my tips for your first job don’t ever skip breakfast.
I have lost count of the number of times I have told my students that they should NEVER give breakfast a miss.

If you're about to begin your first job or your first internship even you should read all 20 of Chitnis's tips and then attempt to put them into practice.
  • Thanks to Commitscion Jalaja Ramanunni (Class of 2009) for the link.