If you are considering an academic career in the US then you need to prepare carefully to make yourself competitive on the job market there.
These slides [pdf] are from a talk given by Professor Charis Thompson (LSE and Berkeley) to PhD students and gives useful tips on approaching the US academic job market.
This paper on the economics job market is written by John Cawley and published by the Social Sciences Research Network. It’s worth a read for anyone interested in the US academic job market in general.
Another useful source of information is the Chronicle of Higher Education. This provides of news and advice on the US academic sector and also advertises jobs.
'The Professor Is In' is a blog that gives advice on how to approach the US academic job market. It’s well worth reading and has a particularly interesting blog post on What British-Trained Candidates Are Doing Wrong on the US Job Market. Slides from a talk given by Dr. Karen Kelsey about hacking the US academic job market may also be useful.
Teaching statements
Teaching Statements increasingly form part of the UK academic application package but they are common in the US and found in other countries. There is no standard UK format but these links might help you create yours (always check the requirements of the post, some set a page limit or word count and the UK style seems to be shorter than the US or Canadian guidelines). There is some guidance from North America here: