When you have the dossier put together, avoid the following: letters from advisor or other collaborators, except to tell us the value of her contribution (and put them in the second grouping); don't talk about that early paper that is so well known, it's with his advisor, and it's been factored into his career already. Don't tell a story about how wonderful he is because of who collaborates with him.

I mention all these because they are killers, making readers of the dossier think the candidate is weaker than advertised.

Emphasize his independence or career trajectory in terms of substantive interests. What is his contribution to scholarship?

Letter writers should be as arms-length as possible, and some coming from larger areas than just narrow sub-specialty or even field. Don't tell us that there are no such arms-length people.

An often obvious weakness is no substantial extramural research funding. No excuses, but discuss.

What is the distinctive contribution?