Hi Bob.
By just about anyone's lights, the job market in philosophy is a difficult one. Though there are still good jobs to be had, there's a lot of competition for them, even if you earn your Ph.D. from a top program, publish in top journals, and otherwise do everything right. If you have any career interests other than as a philosophy professor, you'll want to seriously consider pursuing those other interests before (or instead of) going on to graduate school, especially if your other field of interest would give you a broader variety of career options. If nothing else, it wouldn't hurt to have a fall-back option in another field in case a career in philosophy doesn't materialize.  And heck, if it's a somewhat related field (e.g., science, engineering, business...) it can inform the work you do in philosophy (e.g., the philosophy of science, business ethics, etc.)

As for the general process of research, there's a lot of variability here depending on the individual, his or her prior background in a particular area of philosophy, his or her connectedness to others in the guild, and so forth.  That said, one common way of doing research is to pick a question or topic that really interests you and start reading up on it.  At some point, you may be struck with a particular idea or the germ of an argument that needs development.  At that point, your next step would be to develop the idea or argument, preferably with the help of competent philosophers in whatever area you're writing about. If you don't know any, presenting at a conference can help. Likewise, being part of a department (at first as an undergraduate, than as a graduate student) helps get you into contact with folks that can give you feedback. If you do this enough, at some point you may have an idea (and an essay) worth shopping around for publication. At that point, and depending on the journal, you may get another layer of feedback on your work.  

Good luck!