You were 18 years old and that brand new skull-and-crossbones forearm tattoo looked great. Fast-forward ten years, you've received a degree and you're looking for a respectable, good-paying job. Will that skull-and-crossbones tattoo be the bane of your job search? Well, it all depends.

The way beliefs drive behavior is quite amazing - especially when you realize that beliefs are often nothing more than thoughts we have so frequently that their status becomes elevated. Beliefs are not necessarily more true than other thoughts we have, but as they become ingrained, they start to influence us. Soon we stop questioning these thoughts and act on them without much further consideration. A lot of personal development boils down to noticing how you act on the beliefs you have established and your ability for honest self-awareness. When you develop these two components, you then create the power to fuel personal change.

"How do you end an interview?” asked Ken, a Baby Boomer. “Should I be bold and just say hire me, no one is better? Will I sound too cocky or demanding and lose the job?”

Dear Dave, I’ll be graduating from college in December, and I’ll have a job waiting for me that pays $50,000 a year. This will bring our household income up to about $95,000. The problem is we’ve got $18,000 in student loan debt, $2,500 in credit card debt, and $4,000 to pay in medical bills. We’re living in an apartment right now, so how should we handle this income increase regarding our debt situation? Mikayla

So, your kids are in high school. Honestly, you’re already crushing it as a parent, especially if you still have your sanity! Before you celebrate too hard, though, there’s one more thing to think about—college.

We all want to do nice things for our loved ones. We go on family trips and celebrate life's wins together. It's sometimes difficult for us to consider the bad things that can happen in life, but we still have to be prepared. That's why having a will is so important!

Dear Dave, Why do I need a will if I’m still young and haven’t acquired a lot of wealth?

Going after your dream, or “living the dream,” is more about reality than the dream. I prefer the phrase “realize the dream.” It means you understand you must take small steps and create a plan in order to make your dream a reality. Most people don’t quit once they have a plan in place, because it provides a detailed road map to your destination.

Let me as a Recruiter and Professional CV Writer take you through that route, and how you can create a compelling - and hence job getting - Professional CV.

The topic of disclosure can be tricky to navigate. You can read article after article on this topic and still feel that you are not 100% sure of whether or not to disclose your disability to an employer. This article provides an insider's perspective of this decision-making process taken from the point of view of several job seekers who have worked with Resource Partnership to obtain employment.

Jeff was a Baby Boomer executive who wrote to me to discuss his frustration that his résumé wasn’t getting any results. He was a C-level executive, and he knew he was doing something wrong. Jeff wanted some help in writing a more effective résumé. When I glanced at it, I quickly saw many problems and knew he wasn’t getting through the applicant tracking systems (ATS). Jeff was making some big mistakes that many other professionals and executives make.

Many retiring Boomers consider working after retirement to be a very bad alternative. Perhaps you number yourself among them. And you have your reasons. For one thing, you have worked for multiple decades, always with the dream ahead of a retirement that is free from work. Given the pace of your life... the business trips that have kept you away from your family... the late-night paperwork... the continuous upheavals of office politics... and all those other ups and downs, successes and stresses... you can only hope that you will make it through to the promised land of leaving all this behind. What sounds appealing is the idea of what you will NOT be doing. Ever again. Forever.

As of March 2019 there were 1,016 active rigs off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana. Oil production from US federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico reached an all-time annual high of 1.65 million barrels per day in 2017.According to the Energy Information Administration, "Gulf of Mexico federal offshore oil production accounts for 17% of total U.S. crude oil production and federal offshore natural gas production in the Gulf accounts for 5% of total U.S. dry production." But what kind of positions are available on an oil rig?

Salary negotiations often freaks people out. Linda, 57, is a program manager who called to say, “I can’t do it! Robin, I’m terrified of trying to negotiate for the salary offer. What if they rescind the offer?” I haven’t heard of that especially when it is so hard to find good, talented people these days. Yet, it took a great deal of coaching to reassure this Baby Boomer that she had nothing to lose if she followed the strategies I laid out in our consulting session. She did and was astonished that they conceded quickly and she’s making $8,000 more than they originally offered and also has an extra week of vacation, too.

Technology has radically changed our day-to-day life over the last few decades. Job seekers have new tools and new challenges as they navigate the job market. Video interviewing, interview scheduling software, and the internet have helped organize the process of hiring new candidates. This has saved precious time and money for hiring managers. Here are some of the more subtle ways the job search has changed over time.

The Woodlands Church Job Fair is an annual event that brings employers and job seekers together for the benefit of all. JobSparx is proud to be a media sponsor and attendant every year.

The JobSparx team was excited to attend the 2019 HR Symposium and connect with hundreds of HR departments from all over the Houston area.

Chef is a term that has taken on a new meaning recently in the hospitality world. If you know how to cook you now are referred to as "chef". Well let's look at what a chef is and what he/she does. The Qualities of a Great Sous Chef would require knowledge of all of the stations in a kitchen and the responsibilities of each of those stations and the Chefs that operate and manage those areas of the kitchen.

JobSparx was proud to sponsor the Northwest Assistance Ministries (NAM) and Between Jobs Ministry (BJM) hosting their 2019 Spring Career Fair on Tuesday, March 26 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at The Harrell Family Opportunity Center, which is located behind NAM’s main building. It was free of charge to the 400 job seekers who attended as well as over 50 recruiters and employers like Southwestern Energy, Houston Methodist Hospital, National Oilwell Varco, and Wells Fargo Bank. Companies in attendance ranged from the City of Houston to Marriott Hotels and spanned a variety of industries such as oil and gas, education, law enforcement, finance, and medical. Job seekers were able to meet with Workforce Solutions, NAM THRIVE, and Lone Star College, as well as with representatives from non-profit and veteran organizations in the area. Participants also had the opportunity to attend a special Job Readiness Workshop led by Bill Proctor of NextStep Career Management.

In contemporary times, almost as a cultural practice, education has been elevated to the level of an initiation rite into the modern world. With the aid of formal educational training, people acquire the skills of reading and writing. It is obvious that literacy, the ability to read and write, has become a requisite for coping with numerous challenges of modern times. As a strategy for ensuring that no child is denied the opportunity of acquiring formal education, not sending a child to school is a criminal offence in some parts of the world, especially in the West. In addition, some governments assist their citizens to acquire formal education by either subsidising the cost or making it available at no cost (at the basic level, at least).