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After months of attending recruiting events during the first quarter of school, interview season is finally in full swing here at Kellogg. For the past few weeks people have been dressing up in suits, reserving all the study rooms to do mock interviews, and waiting in the career center to take part in interviews in the on campus interview process.

To get one of these coveted interviews though, you first have to successfully apply on Kellogg’s online application system, which requires submitting a resume and cover letter, and for some firms filling out an online application on the company website. But even if you weren’t successful in that process you could still bid points to interview for the position, as all students all given points to bid on jobs throughout the year. But some jobs tend to go for a lot of points, so bidding the process isn’t necessarily as easy as it sounds.

Likewise, the overall interview process isn’t as easy as many of us envisioned it. And as a result, there’s also a lot more nervous energy in Jacobs, a lot more students surfing the career center webpage, and a lot more of my classmates requesting “acceptance” into the Kellogg LinkedIn group to update their profiles just in case employers check – I know that because am the LinkedIn group owner.

For some, the recruiting process is draining and takes quite a bit of planning. But most people are optimistic and still believe that good things will happen if you put in genuine effort. On the other hand, some of my classmates are lucky enough to have good fortune on their side. They not only get interviews with the firms they were hoping for but they also land the job they really wanted and are fortunate enough to get through the process very quickly.

Perhaps the lesson is that finding the right job isn’t a perfectly defined process. And while some have the good fortune of landing one quickly, others spend different amounts of time, depending on what the job they’re aiming for and depending the role of luck in the process. Either way, good luck to everyone in their job search.