You hit 6 percent veteran hires last quarter. Good number? Bad number? You have no idea. Without a reference point, that 6 percent is just a number on a slide. It could be twice your industry's pace. It could be half. A raw figure tells you nothing on its own.

Benchmarking fixes that. You compare your veteran hiring to a real reference point. That point can be the labor market, public employer data, or a recognized award standard. Then your number means something.

This guide is for the company that hires veterans on purpose and wants to know how it stacks up. It walks through what to measure, where to find peer reference data, how to set a fair target, and where benchmarking falls apart. None of this is about a federal mandate. We will sort that out first, because people mix the two up constantly.

Is this peer benchmarking or the OFCCP compliance benchmark?

These are two different things. People search "veteran hiring benchmark" and land on both. Then they get confused.

The OFCCP benchmark is a compliance rule. It applies to federal contractors and subcontractors above a dollar threshold. There is a single national figure set by the government each year. You measure your veteran hire rate against it and document the result. It is a legal yardstick, not a peer comparison.

Peer benchmarking is voluntary. You are not measuring against a regulation. You are measuring against other employers and the labor market. The goal is to know if your hiring is strong or weak compared to companies like yours. No agency cares about this number. You care about it.

If you are a federal contractor, you need both. The compliance benchmark is not optional for you. Start with our guide on the OFCCP veteran hiring benchmark and what contractors track. For how that national number gets set and why it shifts, read the VEVRAA hiring benchmark explained. Then come back here for the peer side.

If you are not a federal contractor, the compliance benchmark does not apply to you at all. The rest of this guide is what you actually want.

What should you actually benchmark?

Most teams benchmark one thing. The percent of hires who are veterans. That number matters, but it is not the whole picture. A company can post a high veteran hire rate and still run a weak program. The veterans leave fast. The roles are low quality. The number looks good and means little.

Benchmark four things instead. Each one tells you something the others miss.

Percent of hires who are veterans

This is the headline number. Take your veteran hires and divide by total hires for the same period. A quarter works. A year works better, because small teams swing hard quarter to quarter. One big hiring push can throw a quarterly rate off badly.

Count self-identified veterans only. Many veterans never tell their employer. So your real number is almost always higher than your records show. Keep that in mind when you read your own data. It runs low.

Veteran retention rate

Hiring is half the job. Keeping people is the other half. Track how many veteran hires are still on the payroll at 12 months. A high hire rate with low retention is a leaky bucket. You are spending money to fill seats that empty out.

Retention is also a fairness check. If veterans leave faster than your other hires, something in the job or the culture is pushing them out. The number forces you to look. For the full playbook, see the veteran hiring program metrics that matter.

Time to fill and source mix

Time to fill tells you how efficient your pipeline is. If veteran roles sit open for 90 days, your sourcing is too slow or too narrow. Source mix tells you where your veteran hires come from. Job boards. Referrals. SkillBridge. A veteran talent pool. Most teams have no idea which channel works. Track it and you stop wasting spend on the channels that bring in nobody.

Where do you find peer and industry reference data?

A benchmark needs a reference point. Your own number alone proves nothing. You need outside data to compare against. There are four good sources. None of them cost much, and most are free.

BLS veteran labor force data

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks veterans in the workforce every year. The BLS Employment Situation of Veterans report gives you the veteran unemployment rate, labor force participation, and how veterans split across industries. In 2025, the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans sat at 3.6 percent. That is a tight labor market. It tells you veterans are working, not waiting around.

Why this matters for benchmarking. BLS data shows you roughly what share of the available workforce is veterans, and which industries they cluster in. If veterans make up a small slice of your industry's workforce, a 4 percent hire rate may be strong. If they cluster heavily in your field, 4 percent is weak. The labor market sets the bar.

Census data on the veteran population

The Census Bureau tracks where veterans live. The Census veteran population data breaks down veteran counts by state and metro area. This is the local layer BLS does not give you. A 5 percent veteran hire rate looks different in a town with a base nearby than in a city with almost no veterans. The local supply changes what good looks like.

Match this against your own footprint. If you hire mostly in a metro with a big veteran population, your bar should be higher. If your local pool is thin, a lower rate can still beat your peers. For a deeper read on this, see how many veterans are in your local talent pool.

Public employer reports and award data

Some employers publish veteran hiring numbers in their diversity or workforce reports. Public companies and large firms often share these. You can read them and pull a rough peer figure. Treat these numbers with care. Companies report the flattering version. Still, a range of public figures gives you a sense of where the pack sits.

Award programs give you a cleaner anchor. The Department of Labor runs the HIRE Vets Medallion Program, the only federal award for veteran hiring. It sets public thresholds by company size. For a large employer to earn the top Platinum award, 10 percent of new hires must be veterans. That 10 percent is a real, public, peer-tested bar. Smaller firms have their own size category, so the comparison stays fair.

Industry trade groups and surveys

Many industries run workforce surveys that include veteran hiring. Trade associations and HR research groups publish them. SHRM and similar bodies put out veteran-employment research now and then. These give you a peer figure inside your own industry, which is the closest comparison you can get. Search for one in your field before you assume no data exists.

How do you set a realistic peer-relative target?

You have your number. You have peer data. Now you set a target. The trap here is picking a round number off a slide. Someone says "let's hit 10 percent" because it sounds good. Nobody checks if that is reachable in your industry or your region. Then the goal dies because it was never real.

Build the target off your own baseline and your peer data. Here is a clean way to do it.

A peer-relative target moves you toward the pack without breaking the team. You are not chasing a vanity number. You are closing a measured gap. For a full breakdown of how to size a goal off your baseline, read how to set realistic veteran hiring targets for your team.

Watch the denominator trap. Your percent can rise while your raw count falls, or the reverse. If total hiring drops, a steady veteran count shows up as a higher percent. That is not progress. Always report both the percent and the head count so leadership sees the real story.

What are the limits of benchmarking?

Benchmarking is a tool, not a verdict. It can mislead you if you lean on it too hard. Know where it breaks before you build a whole program around it.

First, the comparison data is rough. Public employer reports are self-reported and often polished. Industry surveys vary in method. Two surveys can give you two different "peer" figures for the same field. You are working with estimates, not exact peer numbers. Treat the benchmark as a range, not a precise line.

Second, a benchmark says nothing about quality. You can match your peer rate by hiring veterans into dead-end roles they quit in six months. The percent looks fine. The program is failing. This is why retention sits in your metrics. A number you hit by churning people is worse than a lower number with people who stay.

Third, your context can beat the benchmark. A 25-person manufacturer in a rural county with almost no veterans nearby may run below every peer figure and still be doing fine. The labor supply is what it is. Benchmarks assume an average context. You do not have an average context. Use the number to ask better questions, not to grade yourself pass or fail.

Last, do not benchmark to look good. Benchmark to get better. The point is not a clean slide for leadership. The point is to find the gap, then close it with real hires who stick. If the benchmark becomes a trophy, the program drifts toward optics. Keep it pointed at the work.

Where do the veteran candidates come from?

Benchmarking shows you the gap. Closing it takes candidates. This is where most programs stall. The target is set, the metrics are clean, and then the pipeline runs dry. You cannot move your number if no veterans are applying.

That is the problem we built BMR to solve on the employer side. Companies that want to hire veterans need a steady flow of real ones. Our pool grows by over 1,000 new veteran profiles every month, and more than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. That is fresh, active talent, not a stale list.

If you are benchmarking your veteran hiring and want a faster way to close the gap, reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool. You set the target. We help you fill it. For the case to take upstairs first, see how to make the internal business case for veteran hiring.