Hi,

I am interested in pursuing an academic career in the social sciences in Australia because I believe it is something I am good at and would enjoy. I enjoyed the research I completed for my masters degree in Europe, I co-authored an article in a high impact journal and have resubmitted a solo authored article in another journal (both are ARC A grade journals) after receiving mostly positive reviews. I am returning to Australia for a one-year Level A research assistant position at a social science research institute. My intention is to gain admission into a PhD position in 2012 and I hope it will lead to a secure academic career in Australia.

However, after reading some of the threads on this site, I have heard of people with strong publishing records failing to convert PhDs/post-docs into secure positions. Therefore, I am interested in advice on how to gain a secure position in academia and whether publishing journal articles is the best method. I often hear about "publish or perish" and the importance of peer-reviewed journals as key, but when I look at the research on publishing patterns, the majority of articles are published by a small minority of academics. Further, when I look at the publication lists of academics who taught my undergrad degree, I do not see very many peer reviewed articles in high impact journals. Perhaps I am missing something and I have some questions:

How important are peer-reviewed journal articles for getting Level A & B positions?
How many articles are typically expected from successful applicants for these positions?
Is it better to churn out a lot of articles in a short period of time or spread it out over years?
Is it worth publishing other types which do not typically undergo blinded peer review, such as conference papers, book chapters? (One of my articles was rejected from a journal I sent it to, but I was offered to have it published in a book from the conference. I chose to resubmit it to another journal and hope for the best.)
How important is teaching experience during the PhD? (all my prior experience has been in research and working in state government)

I hope that by the end of 2011, I will have something like 3-6 journal articles before hopefully starting the PhD. My emphasis (or perhaps overemphasis) on publishing is so that I can have a secure academic career in the future. However, even though I am confident of my research abilities, I am very afraid of being unemployed at the end of it. I would like to think that the public sector is always an option, but maybe having a PhD would put e in a worse position than before due to overqualification. If anyone has any advice on what they would have done differently or how they successfully navigated themselves into a secure academic position, please post away!