Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.

What: Shares of human resource management specialist Kenexa (Nasdaq: KNXA) look resourceful today, rising as much as 15.8% this morning on very heavy trading.

So what: After adjusting Kenexa's first-quarter results for the acquisition of Salary.com, the company beat the Street's revenue targets by 3% and the earnings consensus by a penny per share. Management also raised its overall revenue guidance and tightened its full-year earnings targets around the upper half of earlier estimates.

Now what: Kenexa sees an improving economy and a budding surge in new hires, which is not only great news for the economy at large but particularly interesting to a provider of staff-management solutions. Sales jumped 50% year-over-year, so management has the numbers to back up its optimistic talk. Chief rival Lawson Software (Nasdaq: LWSN) is in the process of going private under the influence of Carl Icahn, and might be distracted for a while. Kenexa picked a great time to hit its stride.

Interested in more info on Kenexa? Add it to your watchlist.