[BrentOzar]

> How many other companies are you competing with to get this so called "best and brightest"?

If you're willing to hire remotely and hire from your online community as Jeff suggests, you're competing with surprisingly few companies.

I'm part of a small Microsoft SQL Server consultancy, and competition for good database performance tuners is notoriously difficult. However, when we publish a blog post that we're hiring, we get overwhelmed with applicants. Most of our competitors require an onsite presence, make the employees show up in an office from 9 to 5, and hire in cities with high costs of living. We don't - so we don't end up with much competition for brilliant people who just happen to have family ties to smaller communities.