Another strategy is to look for work in rural areas. A big reason non-local candidates are discarded is that, in large metro areas, there's a ready supply of local talent. Look for jobs in rural areas that are a couple of hours travel from a large metro area you're interested in. There's a good chance that, because a lot of tech people are reluctant to move to small towns, you'll get a relocation package. Once you're in, you can start looking for something in the metro area...if you still want to. ;)

Small town tech jobs are out there. I work for a rather large Telecom company whose headquarters is in a good sized city but whose operation center is in a small town. We're 2-3 hours from the nearest city which makes it nice for weekend or day trips but we don't have the high crime, high cost of living, rat-race life style, etc. We also don't have a large pool of technical people to choose from so the company expects to pay relocation.

Also on the plus side, since there is a tech company here, we do have high speed internet access (either cable or DSL), a couple of coffee shops, reasonable shopping in easy reach, etc. It's not 'Bright lights, Big City', but it's not bad considering that there are only 3 stop lights in the entire county.

Jack