Abstract: It will be no news to anyone in literary studies that for many years the job market has been rough. An increase in part-time academic labor, state bud getary cuts, an overproduction of PhDs, and more have all resulted in a sit uation in which most candidates, it seems, don't get the job they want their first time out. One sign of the pervasiveness of this crisis is that I don't need to explain, to my literary studies audience, at least, what I mean by "first time out." Indeed, that phrase would puzzle those in schools of medi cine or law or business: for there, on a fixed schedule with your entering class, you finish the degree, you get a job, and go. For humanities PhDs, however, more fuzziness obtains. The point of eventual completion of a PhD is far from fixed, and one's success in the hiring market is similarly uncertain. It has consequently become accepted that budding PhDs may have to go to the market two times or more to land the job they want. One question, therefore, that faces nearly every dissertation writer? and there are over six thousand graduate students in the MLA?is when to go out first. For if you'll only really get a job the second time, shouldn't your first run be "premature"? Because the job market process, early entry or not, is so important and taxing for candidates and such an occupation for hiring committees, the timing question merits careful thought. In the following few pages I offer a set of guidelines for dissertation writers?my primary addressees?and their advisers.