Ok, fair enough, my comment was perhaps flippant. My company pays at least market rate and can afford to go higher if the candidate negotiates, so I don't thin

Ok, fair enough, my comment was perhaps flippant. My company pays at least market rate and can afford to go higher if the candidate negotiates, so I don't think that's the issue. At least, we never had a candidate refuse a position due to money concerns. The skills we look for are not that specialized either, it's not like I'm looking for ML PhD's with a background in medicine. Anecdotally, it just feels like almost everyone who is already good, is already happily employed. So either we need to head-hunt candidates, hope to coincidentally catch them while they're between jobs, or hire very junior candidates and train them up. Of course, the issue might also be just that we need better recruiters to populate the candidate pool :)