You run a government contractor with a real defense footprint. You hold contracts that need cleared people. On these reqs, the clearance is the gate. No clearance, no badge, no billable hour.

So the math is simple. Find people who already hold a clearance, or who can get one fast. Veterans are the deepest pool for that. Many separate with an active clearance. Many more have a recent investigation on file that can be pulled forward.

This guide is for GovCon firms that already have a defense footprint and an active facility clearance. If your company does not have a defense footprint yet and you are trying to break in, read how a midsize company hires cleared veterans without a defense footprint instead. That play is different. This one assumes you can already hold classified work and you want to fill billets without overpaying a staffing agency.

Why Are Cleared Veterans the Fastest Way to Fill GovCon Billets?

A clearance takes time and money to build from zero. The investigation runs long. The contract may have already started. Every empty cleared seat is a billet you cannot bill against.

A veteran who already holds a Secret or Top Secret clearance skips most of that wait. The investigation is done. The adjudication is done. If the clearance is current and in scope, you can often move them onto the contract with little friction.

The supply is real. Gulf War-era II veterans, the ones who served since September 2001, are the largest veteran group at about 5.6 million people. Many of them held a clearance on active duty. The jobless rate for those who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both ran 3.4 percent in August 2025, so this is a competitive pool. You are not the only firm chasing them.

The takeaway is speed. A cleared veteran is the shortest path from open req to billable. Your job is to find them, read their clearance right, and not lose them to a slow process.

What Does Your Company Need to Hold a Cleared Hire?

Before you can put a cleared person on classified work, your company needs its own clearance. That is the Facility Security Clearance, or FCL. The FCL is the company-level credential. The personnel clearance, or PCL, is the person-level credential. You need both.

Here is the part that trips up newer firms. A company cannot self-sponsor an FCL. You cannot just apply for one because you want defense work. A cleared U.S. government agency or a cleared prime contractor has to sponsor your facility, and they have to tie that request to a real classified contract or a bona fide need for one. The DCSA FCL sponsorship requirements lays out the same rule.

If you have a defense footprint already, you likely cleared this hurdle long ago. Good. The point for hiring is this: your active FCL is what lets you sponsor and hold employee clearances. Without it, a candidate's personal clearance has nothing to attach to.

Want the full mechanics on the company side? Start with what your company needs for a facility security clearance. It walks the FCL basics in plain terms.

How Do You Read a Clearance Level on a Veteran's Resume?

A veteran resume often lists a clearance, but the wording is loose. You need to read past the label and check three things: the level, the status, and the date.

The level tells you how high they can go. The common ladder runs Secret, Top Secret, then Top Secret with SCI access (TS/SCI). A poly may sit on top of that. Match the level to what the contract actually requires. A Secret holder cannot work a TS/SCI billet without an upgrade, and that upgrade is its own wait.

The status tells you if it is live. "Active" means they are in a job that uses it now. "Current" usually means the clearance is still within its valid window but not in active use. "Inactive" or "expired" means it lapsed. Each one changes how fast you can move.

The date matters most for anyone out of a cleared role. The clock that matters is the break in access, not how long ago they served.

When the resume is vague, ask. A simple email gets you the level, the granting agency, and the date of last access. For a deeper walk-through, see how to read a security clearance on a resume.

How Does Clearance Reciprocity Work When You Hire Them?

Reciprocity is the rule that lets one agency accept another agency's clearance work. You do not start the whole investigation over. If a veteran's clearance is in scope and there are no new concerns, the gaining side is expected to honor the prior investigation and adjudication.

The directive behind this is SEAD 7. It tells agencies to accept existing background investigations and eligibility determinations from other authorized agencies instead of re-running them. DCSA explains the program in its reciprocity overview.

What this means for your hire: a cleared veteran's military clearance can often carry into your contract without a fresh start. That is the speed advantage. But reciprocity has limits, and the biggest one is time.

What Is the 24-Month Reactivation Window?

This is the number that decides most cleared veteran hires. A clearance can usually be reactivated if no more than 24 months have passed since the person was last in an access status, and there are no new security concerns.

Inside that 24-month window, a new sponsor can often pick the clearance back up with little friction. Past it, the eligibility may need extra review before access is granted. DoD applies its own version of this through DODM 5200.02, where a break in service longer than 24 consecutive months ends reciprocity eligibility for DoD positions.

So when you screen, ask the real question: when was your last date of access? Not when did you get out. That single answer tells you whether you are inside the window or facing a longer reinstatement path. For a fuller breakdown, see hiring a veteran whose clearance lapsed and the 24-month rule.

Even when the clock has run out, the candidate is not dead. Their prior investigation still cuts time off a new process. That is where clearability comes in. A veteran with a clean, recent record is far easier to clear from scratch than a cold civilian. If you want to widen the funnel, learn how to screen veterans for clearability when they have no active clearance.

How Do You Source Cleared Veterans for GovCon Roles?

Sourcing cleared talent is its own skill. The people you want are often passive. They are already on a contract, doing fine, not posting on job boards. You have to go to them.

A few channels work better than a generic post.

One more channel matters here. Veterans who already self-identify their clearance and career field in a profile save you a screening round. BMR's pool adds more than 1,000 new veteran profiles every month, with over 60,000 resumes built, so the supply of fresh, searchable candidates keeps growing. That breadth runs deep in cleared and government-adjacent fields, which is exactly the talent GovCon firms chase.

For the finding side specifically, two guides go deeper than this one. Read how to find cleared veteran talent for defense roles and recruiting veterans for government services and contracts.

How Do You Match Military Experience to a Billable Labor Category?

Finding a cleared veteran is half the work. The other half is mapping their service to a labor category your contract can bill. A clearance gets them through the gate. The labor category, or LCAT, decides the rate and the role.

This is where many GovCon hiring teams stall. A veteran's military title rarely maps one-to-one to a contract LCAT. An intelligence analyst, a network operator, a logistics planner. Each one fits several civilian labor categories, and the fit drives the bill rate.

Done right, this mapping protects your proposal and your margin. A clean LCAT match means the candidate bills at the rate the contract expects and survives any audit of who is doing the work. For the full method, read mapping veteran experience to GovCon labor categories.

What Compliance Do You Owe as a Federal Contractor?

Defense work comes with hiring rules that pure commercial firms skip. If you hold federal contracts above the dollar threshold, you are likely covered by VEVRAA. That means you owe affirmative steps to recruit and hire protected veterans, and you track your effort against a yearly benchmark.

The point is not paperwork for its own sake. Sourcing cleared veterans and documenting that outreach can satisfy both goals at once. You fill the billet and you build the record a reviewer wants to see.

The compliance side has its own depth, and a clean record protects your contracts. For the rules in full, read VEVRAA compliance for federal contractors hiring veterans.

What Slows Down a Cleared Veteran Hire?

You found the candidate. The clearance reads clean. Then the offer stalls. That happens for a few reasons, and most are inside your control.

The first is speed. Cleared veterans move fast. If your process takes three weeks to get to an offer, a faster firm already grabbed them. Cleared talent is a seller's market.

The second is a misread clearance. A team that does not confirm the date of last access can promise a start date the candidate cannot meet. Then the contract slips and trust goes with it.

The third is the start gap. Even with reciprocity, there is paperwork between offer and badge. If you can use an interim or a contingent start, plan for it up front so the candidate is not left waiting unpaid.

The fix for all three is the same. Treat a cleared req as a priority lane. Pre-confirm the clearance details, compress your offer timeline, and have your FCL and start path ready before you make the call.

Where to Start This Week

You already have the defense footprint and the FCL. That is the hard part. What is left is finding cleared veterans, reading their clearance right, and moving before someone else does.

Pick one open cleared req. Confirm the LCAT it needs and the clearance level it requires. Then go to the channels where cleared veterans actually are, and ask every candidate the same first question: when was your last date of access. That answer sorts your pipeline faster than anything else.

BMR's veteran talent pool is built for exactly this kind of search. More than 1,000 new veteran profiles get added every month, on top of over 60,000 resumes built, and the pool runs deep in cleared and government-adjacent fields. When you are ready to source against a real cleared req, reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool.