It’s time for the post where I make excuses for why I haven’t been keeping up with my target of one post per day this month.

Don’t worry, I have a good one this time: I’m applying for postdoc positions. A lot of the application deadlines are coming up at the end of this month (well, actually a lot of them passed already, but the ones that haven’t are coming up soon), so in addition to cranking out blog posts, I have to prepare my application materials.

I’ve found that in the world of physics, there’s a certain set of documents that you tend to be asked for when applying for a job or postdoc, or an award (which is another unfortunate necessity of success in academia). I’m going to save all you youngn’s who haven’t gone through the process yet the trouble, and list out the common documents which you should have prepared ahead of time and keep up to date as needed:

• CV (curriculum vitae): from the Latin for “course of life,” this is something like a “master list” of your accomplishments in the field. It includes any …