The following is a guest post by K. Anne Watson, a PhD candidate in Political Science and International Affairs at the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs.

The academic job market is incredibly stressful. This is at least partly because so much of the process tends to be opaque. (The rest, of course, is because you will be asked to handle all of it while juggling your day-to-day life and feeling a vague—or not-so-vague—sense of existential dread settling in around you.)

Leading up to my first applications, I asked question after question of my committee members, other graduate students, and Google. I really struggled to get a complete picture of the market. With that year behind me, I decided to gather together the resources and advice that most helped me prepare for the market and some of the experiences my peers and I had on the market, in the hope that graduate students coming after me will be able to find the answers to their most pressing questions in one place.

The guide is posted on my website. It’s broken into five sections: general information and advice, application materials, phone and video interviews, flyout interviews, and practice interview questions. I hope that you’ll check it out and that you find something inside that eases your job market concerns.