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. 

• UPDATE (June 20, 2013): Here's how to answer that near-universal job interview question: WHY SHOULD WE HIRE YOU?