I went to a major US university which was a recruitment center for a number of companies.  I got a job at one rather by chance, as a good friend was applying there and told me I should too. But this happened several months before graduation.<p>In cases like that, at major US universities, some big companies (each of whom can hire dozens of students every year) are in a race: they know that they will overlap in which students they want most.  So they offer early, and they play games like the &quot;exploding offer&quot; we have discussed here before.<p>With those companies,  recruitment of a spring graduating class will be complete before the start of winter.<p>After graduation, things should get easier once you have 2-3 years of work experience (i.e. one industry standard job lifetime).<p>Small companies may be more flexible and&#x2F;or random, because they are less systematic and probably only hire one person (or no one) each year from most schools.