Welcome back. I got behind the proverbial eight-ball last week and was unable to finish this in a respectable time.Anyways we are back and ready to have a look at 'Aptitude'..The second half of the equation.

Like before, let s begin with a basic definition: According to Wikipedia: Aptitude is a component of a competency to do a certain kind of work at a certain level, which can also be considered "talent". Aptitudes may be physical or mental. Aptitude is not knowledge, understanding,…

The folks at LinkedIn have been busy lately, rolling outnew features, connecting with their users at the LI conference, and busily expanding their empire in all directions. Some pundits are proclaiming that…

Trust is defined as: (Noun) assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something; one in which confidence is placed; (Verb) to rely on the truthfulness or accuracy of; to place confidence in, rely on; to hope or expect confidently.

Early in my career I worked for one the world’s…

I see a lot of resumes, more than I care to admit, and between us, sometimes I even dream about them. The problem with resumes in general is that 98% of them look virtually the same. Granted, there is only so much you can do with a couple of sheets of white paper (or perhaps ivory if you dare) and…

The Presidential Debates are almost over. I wish they would talk more about how exciting and dynamic the new employee economy can be. I wish they would tell us what they are going to do to make sure we have an economy where individuals can thrive (as opposed to stale old structures). Sure there are jobs be created again in manufacturing - but that is just plugging holes. 

They will talk back and forth about a myriad of ideas. And certainly they will talk about jobs. They will talk…

The simple directions promoting the value of rinse and repeat, as printed on shampoo bottles everywhere, increases the amount used and garners manufacturers of personal hygiene products billions of dollars. This is just one of many simple and sustainable marketing processes in use across the globe. From bartenders actively upselling premium drinks to Southwest Airlines’ low-cost, high-value Early Bird check-in fee, smart sellers of products and services leverage consumers’ hunger for added…

Preserving your brand when staff leave and preserving your personal reputation when you move to a new company should be both party’s main aim.

We work within media agency, digital agency, sales and research & insights and I would say brand preservation is a key pre-requisite in any sector regardless of the industry.  Some good old…

It isn’t every day that a vendor in HR is called “an emerging force to be reckoned with” by a top market analyst. But that’s exactly what happened when Workday, a maker of web-based HR software, raised $637 million in its initial public offering last Friday.

Workday soared on its open in early trading Friday morning, opening at $48.05 per share. The company is now is valued at almost $4 billion, 39 times its revenue over the past 12 months. The…

As a recruiter, I receive Linkedin invitations daily. I would say that 85% of them I do not know. In today's world it is all about networking. This being said, before you click "accept", there are a…

In this episode of The Jim Stroud Show, Jim answers a question from @rithesh. Which search engine gives the best search results for sourcers? Google or Bing? Jim investigates using BingItOn.com, a website that gives you a blind taste test on search engine results. So, who won? The results may surprise you.

The searches done in this test, were not ordinary searches. They were specialized search strings designed to find free resumes online and in one case, information on Jim Stroud's…

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Waking up at 5 AM is never easy. It is the winter, so the warm blankets feel good, and another couple of hours of sleep is tempting. You went to bed around midnight hanging out with some good friends, and it had been a long week. Nevertheless, you roll out of bed, put on your longjohns, jeans, boots, sweater and a warm coat and head…

These days everyone who has a knack for languages (or even those who don’t!) are being urged to learn ‘Chinese’. As amused as I am to hear people refer to a collection of at least 10 distinct and well-supported dialects as a single language, I can understand the sentiment – China is one of the fastest-growing economies and world powers, is modernizing at a breakneck pace, and is clearly where a lot of the action will be in coming years. Many of my friends with children ask me for my advice…

I was VERY fortunate to be interviewed by Monster.com for their "Inside HR" series. The topic was on social recruiting, so I had a couple of things to say. Tune in to find out what they were. (Or, if you have nothing better to do over the next 2 minutes.)…

Click here to play.

Many Accounting, Finance, IT and Office Support job seekers have surely been ignored after the submission of a job application – especially via Internet job boards.  We’ve discussed the dismal reality of depending on this employment search method and, quite frankly, an employer’s lack of response in such situations is reasonable.  Assuming that someone in the company actually…

Here is our weekly feature in which we share the top articles we enjoyed from the past week about recruitment marketing, social recruiting and anything else in the recruiting space. In this article, we’ll be talking about mobile recruiting, marketecture, employer branding, recent job board news and the history of social media.

And if you haven’t seen it, we were honored to be named on of George Larocque’s #HRWins HR…

In a world where seemingly everyone has gotten involved in Social Media (still hate that term), is it odd when you run across someone who is not? I am not talking about someone in their 80s, but someone in today’s work-a-day world. Certainly there are many people who do not feel they have time, or who may feel that their personal involvement in social or professional networks adds little value to either their professional standing or their company’s performance. But isn't this a dying breed?…

Memory Triggered:  When a credible candidate has worked in an absolute hell-hole where no one likes them, their organization or what they represent, guess what?  They’re probably going to kick #$$ in your company, because your piddly little troubles and drama actually look appealing to them.   They’re battle tested. They’ve been in the depths of hell, and your company’s not hell – it’s just El Paso in the summer.

Background: I used to be a Regional VP…