So, I'm still at work on my university's job search, and I've read well over 200 applications for one position. I'm obviously not allowed to reveal any specifics about this job search, but I think I can comment broadly on the process. Here are a few tips for the people out there who might be applying for academic jobs, and tips which I provide since they actually go against some of the advice I've gotten:

• Apply for jobs for which you are qualified. Our job ad is pretty clear about what we want from a scholar; we're asking for a historian of X whose major research deals with Y. Now, obviously there will be a fuzzy boundary around research dealing with Y (it's a big topic), and that's fine. In practice, the applications broke down into roughly three categories: first were people who genuinely did X dealing with Y, and that was obvious because their writing would make specific historiographical interventions, dealing clearly with the major literatures of both X and Y. This was a fairly small group, small enough that not everyone on the long-shortlist can be said to clearly fall in this group. Then there were people who did "X sort of dealing with Y," and their success with us depended on how well they actually made the case that their X really did deal with Y. Some of these people were better than others, and some good enough to make the long-shortlist. This was a slightly larger group. Finally, there was the group that comprised at least half, perhaps two-thirds or even three-quarters of the applicant pool, whose applications basically went "I'm a scholar X, and I'm totally aware that Y exists." These people were an utter waste of time. If you're one of these people, stop wasting your time and ours. And, no, being from an Ivy League school does not give you the right to assume that you should be considered for EVERY position out there, even when you should have known immediately that you're not qualified at all.

• Don't screw around in your job letters. For a job ad that makes clear that the priority is a particular kind of research, your job letter should make clear immediately that your research is what we're looking for, and it should do that by starting with an explanation of your contribution to the topics we're interested in. If I have to read two pages of you describing your dissertation before you finally have to actually say "My research contributes to X and Y by..." then you're probably not going to get very far.

• Similarly, skip the language about how excited you are by our program, how much you would love to work with our Professors A, B, and C, how super our programs in X and Y are. I had so many job letters basically telling me about my own university and department--when I already know all that. If you're applying for a job with me, tell me about YOU, because I already know about ME and US. Reading applicants telling me about me was about as useful as undergraduates waxing poetical on human nature since the dawn of time. It's filler. Skip it.

• Name-dropping is not especially useful or impressive. We've got your c.v. and letters of recommendation, which should make clear exactly which scholars you're most affiliated with; the footnotes of your writing will show us which scholars you're dealing with intellectually. No one cares whose classes you've taken or who your pals are. If you're going to give a name in a job letter, it should be a name not in reference to personal relationships, but to their scholarship, so that we can understand what kind of work you're doing.

• Finally, don't use comic sans. Yes, it happened.

What academic work or primary source would you most like to see translated into another language?

For me, it's the memoirs of Filippo Balatri. I'd do it myself and throw it on the Internet for free but my Italian is about the level of "Mangio formaggio!" and not the level of elegantly translating 18th century Italian verse. :(

I've always found the control of history taught to be interesting. I really want to research the impacts colonial educators had on people from South Asia in various region. I have a hypothesis that the people of Punjab were taught more of their warrior history, stories of famous battles, etc... Rather than their poetic, spiritual, and various other histories. To more incline them towards martial professions. It would make sense why these stories still survive in the Punjab to this day. As well as why in both Pakistan and India Punjabi's make up a large part of the Military. Yet we see other regions loose their military warrior history in favor for more peacetime history.

Unfortunately most sources I can find are for college level education, and we know at this time only a certain class of folk could afford that.

What academic works and authors about Brazil’s post-dictatorship electoral process and politics are considered the best? I’ve posted a question regarding the 1989 election process that gained some upvotes but no responses in http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1t16hb/is_it_accurate_to_attribute_collors_victory_over/ . If anyone can point me in the right direction it’d be great, thanks!