Julie was offered an assistantship in marketing, then a media research job she had never heard of, then a class teaching Harvard Graphics, software she had never opened. She said yes to all three and taught herself out of the book the night before each class. The job posting asks for five years and you have one. Apply anyway. Push the comfort zone, because the rest of it they can teach you.
While you are a student, senior people will take your call, make the introduction and answer your email, because it costs them fifteen minutes and it feels good to help. The day you graduate that quietly stops, and in Julie's words it becomes "I don't know if I have time for you so much." That access is an asset with an expiration date on it. Almost nobody spends it while they still have it.
Never ask for a job and never ask whether they are hiring, because both hand them an easy no. Ask for an informational meeting instead, then close it with the question that compounds: now that we have talked and you know more about me, are there two or three other people you could connect me with? The follow-up is your job, not theirs. They are busy. Reach back out every couple of weeks.
Julie asked an EVP at NBCU what separated the people they hired from the people they did not. The ones who got hired walked in with a presentation about themselves and presented it. You may never get to run it, and that is fine. Building it forces you to put your value into words, and your elevator pitch falls out of that work. Do not use AI to write it. You want your own brain doing the assembly.