I don't know much about hiring (so my opinion isn't worth much), but I assume you're using "data scientist" as the job title? If that's the case, it might be t

I don't know much about hiring (so my opinion isn't worth much), but I assume you're using "data scientist" as the job title? If that's the case, it might be the reason for some of the difficulty you're experiencing. The way I see it, "Data Scientist" as a job title has only been around for ~8 years, and there is currently way too much hype surrounding the phrase. I've seen a lot of posters on HN and elsewhere acknowledge that they are trying to land this type of job just for the title, in order to get it on their resume. I would be interested to find out if you are using the phrase, and what would happen to your search for candidates if you changed the title to something less "sexy"[1], like "data analyst"?