DataCrusader

There’s also no guarantee that publications will guarantee success, unfortunately. It’s not all about hard work, but also about what school you went to, who your advisor knows, and how your research fits the department 

One quick way to choose is to see what journal you’re paper has cited most frequently - doesn’t always work but sometimes helps narrow the list down

It's the end of April. When I won in 2016, the letter was dated April 25. Depending on your university, you may find out earlier in April from the powers that be at your school (they usually get some sort of list before award letters go out to applicants from SSHRC). 

You're asking questions that essentially come down to comparative personalities, for which you'll get every possible answer. 
Some PIs will take the initiative, some will disappear and you won't see them at all. 
Personally, when I take my students to conferences I want them to do a mix of exploring and networking on their own, and introducing them to people I know. I usually only introduce them to people that are close colleagues, not the people I'm striking up new relationships with. 

Refereed journal articles are the most important publications of that length.  Book chapter is better than nothing, but it is "worth" less and can take longer to be published.  
And from the editing side, Karen Kelsey has a good blog post discussing edited collections here:
http://theprofessorisin.com/2012/07/24/should-i-do-an-edited-collection/

Here are some other databases for humanities/soc sci (mostly US, some worldwide):
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/category/all
https://philevents.org/conferences

It isn't an official criterion and I've published articles that cite the journal and others where I didn't cite the journal.  But citing the journal can help you get past the desk reject, because the editor sees that you fit into the scholarly discussions that are happening in the pages of that journal.
There's also a pragmatic point where the journal editor could very well send a new submission to the most recent author to publish in the journal on that topic. If that reviewer sees that you cited their work, they have a vested interest in your work getting published because that's a citation for them.