Over the last few years, I have been asked by multiple graduate students regarding academic job market advice/information. While I am not a very experienced or successful candidate in the traditional math academic job market sequence (Grad School > Postdoc > Tenure Track), I have collected some knowledge from various panels and experiences and I would like to record them down here. Please check-in with other people before using any of this, there are more qualified people out there with advice/knowledge regarding job market.
Caveats: I am not including anything regarding job market outside of United States. I am also not including any advice regarding currently being on a visa and navigating academic job market in US. This is intended mostly for grad students who are trying to navigate job market for the first time, so this also does not include information regarding TT jobs in big R1 universities. All the info here is centered around postdoctoral jobs and TT jobs in smaller schools. In time I might add info regarding lecturer jobs. Also this is a work in progress.
Looking through mathjobs and collecting the relevant information in a spreadsheet is very useful. This spreadsheet should have info regarding jobs you want to apply for, the application deadline for each of these jobs, where is the application submitted (mathjobs/ interfolio/ their university portal/ email, etc.), the materials they need, and special requests or creiteria they have for the application/job.
This step helps you plan your timeline, what materials to prepare, etc.
The standard materials for applications are Research Statement, Teaching Statement, CV, Cover Letter, 4 letters of recommendation (including one for teaching).
This can vary greatly from jobs to jobs though. There can be TT jobs which ask additionally for a teaching dossier and 2 or 3 teaching letters. There are teaching only TT jobs which do not ask for a research statement either. Different jobs might have different things they need you to address in your research statement/ teaching statement/ cover letter and they might have different length requirement for these documents. On mathjobs, you always have the option of adding more letters of recommendation, if you have more than 4 but through other application channels that might not be an available option.
Various schools might ask for a write up regarding Accessibility and Inclusivity practices, or practices to support students from varied backgrounds, etc.
When you look through mathjobs, you might notice applications that are more particular about certain documents needed that do not fit into the list above. But most of those documents, I believe, should not need a lot of preparation in advance to write it up.
It might be helpful to have a website.
The timeline depends on what academic jobs you are looking to apply for. For a TT position a few applications can be due as early as late September/beginning of October with applications due throughout October. For postdoc applications, 15th October is usually a very safe first deadline but end of October/beginning of November is usually a big deadline. Note that these change from year to year. So looking at mathjobs around August to gauge your timeline is very important.
It is a good idea to ask people you want to be your letter writers atleast a month in advance, ideally more. You can ask them earlier and once they agree, send them your materials (RS for research letter writers, TS for teaching letter writers, CV for both) and your first deadlines a month before so that they have enough time to write the letter - its high chance that they are writing letters for multiple people by that deadline.
For the above step, you will need to have a reasonable draft of your RS and TS ready a month before your first deadline. Also, you might want to schedule visits to your classes from your teaching letter writer if they have not visited in near past.