All posts by Kurt Kirton

About Kurt Kirton

Song and book writer from MS now living in Nashville, TN. Marketing and graphic design background. Regular blogger on topics surrounding the subject of job searching.

9 Ways to Dispel Thoughts of Suicide During a Job Search

Hope & Encouragement, In Transition, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Photo courtesy of Flikr Creative Commons
Photo courtesy of Flikr Creative Commons

The holiday season can be so lonely for many or amplify stresses for others—especially those in career transition. Although a sensitive subject, I felt it important to share this section of my book to encourage anyone who’s ever had the thought of suicide skitter across their mind.

As private and ugly a thought as suicide is, I think everyone entertains the option—especially during an extended job search or times when they are not experiencing positive results from their efforts or are receiving a lot of rejections. Here are some ways that have helped me fend off these negative thoughts.

1) Make a list of what you’re thankful for—what you do have and the things that are going right for you currently. Think about what you’ve accomplished today, who you helped or plan to help, what made you happy today, and anything you’re looking forward to next (e.g., dinner with friends, that vacation or holiday party, buying something from your wish list). This should help get you into a more positive frame of mind.

2) Hang in there. Sometimes getting that right job takes longer than we’d all like because it’s a matter of timing. Perhaps the job is not quite open yet because, for example, the person in it now hasn’t been promoted or left to be a full-time mom.

3) Take comfort in the fact that God may need you somewhere new now, to encourage or help others or to bless your new employer with your skills, knowledge, and experience. Maybe you’re a high-level (C-suite) manager who’ll be brought in to completely change a location’s culture for the better.

4) Remember, regardless of your work situation or anything else that’s a burden on your mind during this time, your friends and your family still need you. Say it out loud: “People… need… me.”

5) Fact, faith, and feelings—I remember years ago as a youth seeing The Four Spiritual Laws tract. Simple as it may seem, the analogy is a train. Fact is the engine, so regardless of your feelings, remember the facts and what your actual situation is without a lens of drama or worry. Your feelings are a section of the train, the caboose. But a train can run without a caboose. So although your feelings are a part of the equation, remember Fact is out front, Faith knits it together, and Feelings are last. Put your faith in what God has promised in Scripture and in His trustworthiness.

6) Journal—whether it’s a paper journal or just making a new document for each day you write, journaling is a healthy and effective way to pour out your sadness, frustration, thoughts, disappointments, joys, etc. This is not only cathartic, but it can be a means of sorting out your feelings and thoughts. Further, most times you can figure out a solution to what’s bothering you. As much as I can, I try to end the journal entry with what is going right or well, stating the key thoughts I’ve distilled out of that journal entry, and/or the things I’m thankful for.

7) List the good things about yourself. As stated earlier, most people derive self-worth and identity from their job. And that’s to be expected. Heck, it’s one of the first things someone you’ve just met asks you about, not to mention where you spend a majority of your time! So in seasons when you’re not working, it’s easy to forget your value outside of a job. Shoot for 5 good things about yourself…I bet you can come up with 10! These can be personal traits and/or about yourself as an employee. Consider your strengths, things for which others have complimented you, etc. You can even ask a close friend or 2 for their take on what your strengths are.

8) You never know what awesome thing is to come, personally or in your work situation! For example, I never thought I’d be able to travel internationally until one of the music dot-coms I worked for closed down. We got 3 full months of pay and some other great things in our severance packages. Then, in just a few weeks, I got a new job under my former supervisor at the next company he moved to, so I didn’t really spend much of the severance package and was later able to use those funds for a trip to London, Paris, and Amsterdam. I’ve gotten to do several other amazing international trips, songwrite with some of my favorite artists, buy a house without debt or a mortgage, write this book, and on and on. Think back over your life to some things you’d have never believed would happen if someone told you 20 years ago.

9) Seeing your pastor or a Stephen Minister can definitely be a no-cost way of having a shoulder to lean on and discuss thoughts, etc. that are too weighty to express to a friend. Search the web, or call a large local church to see if they can help connect you. Again, hang in there. This is a season, and better days are soon to come.

More on this topic. Betterhelp.com/nyt for affordable access to licensed therapists via phone, video, chat, or text.

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Looking for a new job? Want to get the one you want faster? Check out my book, Here Today, Hired Tomorrow.

6 Tweaks You Should Make to Your LinkedIn Profile to Further Your Career

Getting Started, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Photo by Brenda Anderson
Photo by Brenda Anderson

A while back I was talking with a former pastor who now owns a senior caregiving company. The subject of public speaking came up. Without a lot of time to get deeply into it, I told him I might ask him later for his advice on being an effective compelling speaker. He smiled and remarked how sermons are now “content,” and pastors are now content creators. How true! I’d never thought of it that way. (Some more than others, I thought, my own pastor being a blogger and author as well.) Ah, the march of technology.

I think it’s safe to say that the strongest content created, especially in the marketing realm, involves storytelling. And when it comes to your career, and advancing it, it’s important to market yourself as effectively as possible—be it via your attire, elevator speech, résumé, or LinkedIn profile. The latter will be my focus in this post. Let’s look at several tweaks you can make to help your profile get more of the attention you want.

1) Your Photo
Years ago when I first started using LinkedIn, I resisted the notion of having a photo. I thought it might cause connections or prospective employers to be shallow or judgmental based on a photo, and that omitting a picture would put more focus on my content than my face.

But, as a former supervisor of mine at a record company used to say about album covers, “People like to see people.” Since then, my attitude has changed, and I have to say I agree with that supervisor. Having a photo allows someone to get an extra sense of you as a person and a professional, beyond the written content that follows. They can start connecting by being able to “look you in the eye.” A photo also jogs people’s memory, putting name to face.

Resist the tendency to go for an “I look good in this one” photo that’s too casual, too dark, or has overlapping bits of others in the crop.” Use a clear, professional-looking, conservative photo on your profile. I’d recommend that your attire in it be at least business casual, if not formal interview attire.

If need be, dress like you would for an interview or at least business casual; get outside in good light; and (using at least a 5 megapixel setting) have a friend take 10 or 20 color shots of you. Use an area with a plain background and indirect sunlight so you’re not overly lit or squinting. Be sure to smile. Afterwards, with your friend’s input, choose the best one—something that showcases you as qualified and well put together. Crop it to a portrait orientation, upper chest to above your head, and upload your stellar new pic to your profile.

2) Keywords
Just like with résumés, recruiters will search LinkedIn profiles based on keywords. So your profile should contain keywords that have to do with the jobs you’re hoping to land. You can look at job descriptions at sites like Indeed or Careerbuilder to get ideas for the top keywords used to describe the positions you’re seeking. Then, using your updated résumé, populate that content into your LinkedIn profile.

3) The Summary
LinkedIn provides limited space in the Summary section (which is at the top of your profile page), so utilize this space the best you can. I recommend including the information below, since the Summary is the first section a potential employer will see. It can also be a great spot to reiterate keywords. Further, the Summary can help show others the “you” you want them to know, regardless of your work history.
1. Contact information
2. The summary paragraph from your résumé
3. 4 or so strengths
4. 5 or so selected accomplishments (your most important)
5. Software proficiencies (if relevant for the job you’re seeking)
6. Seeking – This will be 2 bullet points detailing where you’d like to work and what you’d like to do. (You can remove this section after you get your new position.) Here’s a sample:
Seeking:
• Dallas Area Target Position: FT accounting, ____, or ____ position in a solid, ideally medium to large-sized company.
• Sample Job Titles: ____, ____, ____, ____.

4) Volunteer Work
Including volunteer work on your LinkedIn profile is always a plus. LinkedIn now has a Volunteering Experience section in which volunteer work can be entered. When you’re on your profile, the access link appears toward the top. However, LinkedIn says that your colleagues cannot attach Recommendations for you to the volunteer work you enter here! And if you’re thinking about deleting volunteer work you set up like a job and recreating it in this Volunteering Experience section, know that you cannot move any Recommendations you have along with the corresponding volunteer positions.

So, until these issues are remedied, I recommend entering your volunteer positions as jobs, so that Recommendations can be written. Make sure to be detailed on what you did in each position. Not only can viewers can see how you’ve been able to apply certain skill sets in those positions, but supervisors or fellow volunteers can write Recommendations for you that will connect with the respective volunteer position.

5) Avoiding Age Discrimination
In your Education section, choose the “-” for the From-To dates for each of your degrees, and don’t enter the years. Ideally, include no more than your last 10 years of job history in order to avoid any potential age discrimination. But it’s a good idea to list as many of your past positions as you feel you need to show. Don’t forget to customize your public profile URL. This will make it shorter, better looking, and easier for you and others to remember.

6) Keep It Current
Make sure to update your profile information (via the Contact Information link under your total number of your connections) a few times a year as you have more achievements at your current position and especially when you change jobs.

Keep your backlinks current (a LinkedIn pet peeve of mine.) Backlinks are links to things like your website, portfolio, or blog that appear on your Contact Info tab. They are visible to LinkedIn members, but the fields shown depend on your connection to the viewer. Anytime you change one of these URLs, be sure to update the link to it on your LinkedIn profile. Google will index backlinks, helping your profile turn up in searches on your name. People who want to know more about you will be frustrated if they get “Page Not Found” when clicking a backlink.

Watch my video on this topic:

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Looking for a new job? Want to get the one you want faster? Check out my book, Here Today, Hired Tomorrow.

Hope In A Hopeless World: One Thing You Should Consider During the Low Times of Your Job Search

Hope & Encouragement, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Photo by photojordi
Photo by photojordi

There she sat in her in her silk blouse and pink wool skirt, feeling her worst but looking her best. She doesn’t mention what age she was as she recounts this story but seems to be in her mid twenties.

Pop artist/songwriter/author Margaret Becker has been nominated for four Grammys, won four Dove Awards, and has had 21 number one radio hits. But despite her commanding talent and noteworthy career success, she endured dry, discouraging, desperate times like you and me.

Further, this excerpt from a chapter in her book With New Eyes doesn’t even mention that she was told at a young age by her voice teacher that she wasn’t a good singer and never would be!

Resuming the story, we read that she was at a confusing dark time in her life. After much prayer and following God earnestly, she felt as if she had hit a glass ceiling. She couldn’t move forward with her dream of singing, writing, and performing. And despite her job search efforts, she couldn’t get a position that would allow her to move out of her parents’ home. Worse, she felt as if her prayers were not falling on deaf ears—that feeling of “God, are you there; can you hear me—and will you ever help me?” we all experience at times.

Her best friend Scott, put her in touch with Dr. Breene, a teacher from his college. As she sat tight in the waiting room thinking over her situation and what she’d say to such a wise and learned man, she fought back emotion but also considered just bailing on the meeting. But she mustered courage, entered his office, and told her story. Margaret was seeking encouragement, hope, explanation, and more than anything, a way to break through, to end this anguish.

I love Dr. Breene’s response. It’s one I couldn’t have anticipated and makes me think of a crucible. He told her that despite his empathy and desire to ease her mind, that he was only a man and that this time in her life was for a season, to refine her—a stop on the way to a higher place in her career, artistry, life, and relationship with God.

Dr. Breene felt he should not interfere so that God could produce out of this difficulty what he wanted in Margaret. He told her to wrestle with this time, to pray that God give her the strength to endure since it was his great love for her that was allowing it.

As two tears escaped her eyes, she took it in and left feeling not like everything was fine, but that she had direction, that she no longer had one foot nailed to the floor. Knowing there was more “surgery” on her character and mind to come, she left emotional but with hope for healing and vision for recovery.

I’m sure it wasn’t the comforting directional meeting she’d sought or expected, but this time in her life DID come to an end, and she was stronger for it…like (as she mentions) a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. If a birthing larvae is assisted with its liberation, while fully formed and beautiful, it’s wings would be useless, not having endured the stress of the struggle that forces enough blood into them so they unfurl strong and functional.

As I’ve said many times before, career transition is one of the most difficult—and usually painful—times in a job seeker’s life, regardless of his or her position or field. If you can relate to this story, be encouraged.

Know that Kelly Clarkson was right when she sang, “What doesn’t kill ya makes ya stronger.” Know that it will take some time and diligence, but this season will pass. It’s not IF you will ever find that next right job, but a matter of WHEN. And this crucible of time, doubts, fears, and refining will yield a better, stronger you. Remember what you’ve accomplished thus far; move forward with hope and press on.


Please experience Margaret audibly by listening to this song from her album What Kind of Love.

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Looking for a new job? Want to get the one you want faster? Check out my new book, Here Today, Hired Tomorrow.