I've had most success in hiring copywriters who are eager to learn and then teaching them the fundamentals related to creating content-- keyword research, interlinking and thinking of who/how their content will either further business goals or help with generating backlinks. The technical component is easier- just look for anyone with Screamingfrog on their resume or be willing to teach someone who is semi-technical.
We also kept an SEO analyst type role posted for over a year (salary was posted at 65-75k in far suburb, 2015 vintage, so fairly competitive at that time) to see who would apply, and out of 100+ applications we only hired one person (the company I was at would hire qualified people to grow headcount-- I'm ignoring that dysfunction here). Most of the applicants with claims of "5+ years experience" couldn't describe concepts like nofollow, anchor text importance or the difference between robots.txt and meta tags. I've also hired in 2mm population midwestern metros and it gets a lot harder. In less populated areas, remote will probably help quite a bit.
2. A good SEO will say there is no such thing as a good SEO, so look for humble players
3. If you’re having trouble searching - “SEO” is unlikely to be In their title. Look for “content marketing” as a skill instead
4. As a last resort, Learn some yourself and at least you’ll be able to lay the foundation.
Don't look for generalist SEO people, but instead content marketers with experience in your industry.
I've seen so many of our clients get crappy keyword research because the consultant/SEO person they work with doesn't actually know their audience well.