Editor’s Note: This blog is a modified excerpt from professional “headhunter” and bestselling job-hunting book author Skip Freeman’s next book in the “Headhunter” Hiring Secrets series of job-hunting books, Career Stalled? Publication is scheduled for late fall.

You literally breezed through all the preliminary “screening” steps in your quest to land a GREAT new job at a GREAT company that’s a recognized leader in your industry. And three months after beginning your quest, you have just completed your third face-to-face interview with the hiring manager. At every step along the way you clearly branded yourself as the candidate of choice. You feel absolutely certain that a job offer is imminent!

Well, the presidential campaign is over—finally! It was a long, winding, sometimes torturous road for the two “finalists” for the job, Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama, both excellent candidates. But still, in the end, only ONE of the candidates was ultimately selected for the position, the President of the United States. It is ever thus for most “job searches.”

When you think about it (as I have done!), there are more than just a few parallels between how this, the most important of “job searches,” unfolded and how the typical, admittedly far more mundane, job search unfolds in the current job market.