RCs, Stop Playing Defense

Summer internship recruiting is a contact sport.

Dear RCs,

By the time you read this, you’re likely past overwhelmed. Back-to-back three-case-days. The looming cold call. The one you botched the day before. You’re swamped. Good. It’s a feature, not a bug. You’ll survive. Also, look up every so often and enjoy the ride.

You are one of over 900 ambitions in a pressurized container. Some of you are here for the post-graduation salary statistics. Some are taking a two-year break. Some of you read that article about “unemployable” Harvard MBAs and are now mainlining anxiety. Some don’t even have a clean answer for why you’re here. 

Relax. This is about your (immediate) job search. Here’s the uncomplicated thesis: your RC summer is a cheap experiment with an asymmetric payoff. Limited downside, uncapped upside. If you’re already set on the structured path — banking, consulting, the usual suspects — this article isn’t for you. Godspeed. Your work is cut out for you. But if you’re unsure, or even just restless, this is for you. 

Your summer internship is the last truly riskless experiment you will ever get. I’m not talking about compensation. I’m talking about the ability to test a wild hypothesis for 10-12 weeks with no long-term commitment. If it fails, at least you will have learned something. It’s a freebie. Don’t waste it. 

Now, CPD will offer well-intentioned frameworks like “leaps” and “pivots.” These are limiting constraints that implicitly tell you to stay in your lane — an encouragement to disqualify yourself before the game even starts. 

Let the (free) market (cue my section’s collective eye roll) tell you no. Don’t do its job for you. If you’re not qualified on paper for the role you truly want, a standard application is a waste of time. You must do something different. Our most precious resource is agency. Use it. In a world being reshaped by AI on a weekly, if not daily, basis, that’s the last defensible moat as labor gets disrupted in catastrophic and unprecedented ways.

Many of you have spent your lives on a treadmill of excellence, flawlessly executing a script written by someone else to get here. This is your chance to step off and see what else is out there. Took a sponsorship? Odds are you have a mandatory summer away from your firm. Use it!

You might want to do something off the beaten path. I’m not here to judge the what. I’m merely offering a how for landing it. 

This approach is built on your most overlooked asset: the cold email.

A cold call is what happens to you. A cold email is what happens because of you.

What’s your downside? An email goes unread? The stakes are zero. Yes, CPD has resources, and you should use them, but they can’t do the work for you. If you want to create surface area for serendipity, you have to manufacture it yourself. The phrase “opportunity comes knocking” is mostly backward. More often, you have to knock its door down.

Even before writing under the banner of Veritas, I reached out to podcasters and their guests, investors I admire, my favorite soccer team, and, most recently, the person who took a bet on me this summer. And while our email domain could use some work (*cough* Registrar cough), an email from an HBS student still carries some weight. Use it not with entitlement but with a sense of responsibility. If not you, then who?

It wasn’t a single hail-mary. Rather, it was a series of small outreaches that compounded. Leading up to my decision, I spoke with founders and investors who offered time and advice, each conversation adding a kernel to the perspective I was refining.

As late as last spring, I decided I wanted to try operating. Because I come from the buy-side, I was presented with a problem. Most startups want plug-and-play hires that make an immediate impact. Who can blame them? We MBAs are luxury hires, so much so that we’re now a meme. Many startups can’t afford to think about us until they’re well-funded, and even then, we’re often a temporary nuisance. From their side, we’re the asymmetric bet.

So I joined a company before it was a company. Pre-incorporation. Maybe there’s a lesson there. The work was messy, fast, and real. The thesis is ambitious enough that reasonable people think it can’t be done. Maybe they’re right. Maybe they’re not. Either way, I got clarity and reps that I couldn’t have bought any other way, all while working with people I deeply respect and admire.

Your path will inevitably have ups and downs. It’s an iterative process, just like crafting your MBA application story was. Your internship doesn’t have to come from a cold email. But it’s a possibility you must create for yourself. 

The paradox of the RC year is that you will drown in options. That’s life, and it’s exactly what you’re being prepared for. Resolve it by turning recruiting (and most things) into a series of small, falsifiable experiments. You don’t need permission to do this, but you do need rhythm. 

So make your list and check it twice. Do the work and send the email. Then send another.

Worst case: silence. Best case: it defines your career. Get after it.

Santiago Gil Gallardo (MBA ‘26) is originally from Mexico City. He graduated from Tecnológico de Monterrey with a degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering. Before HBS, he worked in venture capital at IGNIA and investment banking at a boutique firm in Mexico City.