Hiring is on the uptick.

At a career fair last month where I was speaking, about 50 companies were looking to fill approximately 3,000 positions.

These companies had assigned key people from their organization to help identify potential candidates to work for them, doing physically what otherwise a LinkedIn Lead Generation tool would have done online for a recruitment team. Additionally, these key people are to interview and, in some cases, persuade job seekers to join their team.

A market where companies have a thirst for talent illuminates two important hiring factors:

In order to grow, companies not only need to locate and on-board new employees, they must be sure to retain the high-performing employees already on their team. While hiring talents to build a high-performance team, companies may have to conduct pre employment screening to know about the employees’ documents, criminal records, financial probity, and much more. Background checks might prevent companies from hiring such employees who don’t have the right to work in a particular country due to visas or criminal matters.

Hiring is a two-way street and, given current market conditions, it’s a seller’s market with top talent carefully considering where they want to spend the next stage of their career.

It’s pretty obvious that leaders must be doing everything in their power to find new top performers, whether that be freelancers (which can be very beneficial – learn more here) or full-time staff. But they must also do their utmost to retain their current top performers.

In a recent issue of The Dallas Morning News, I explored the mindset leaders must bring to the increasingly competitive war for top talent.

There are five questions smart leaders should be asking about hiring and retaining high-performing employees.

• What would cause top talent to work here?
• What am I doing to make this the best job?
• How do we encourage the best ideas?
• Am I accepting less from some colleagues?
• Are we surprised when good people leave?

Asking these questions is crucial. How you answer them is just as important. For guidance on the answers, read the entire article here.