Augusta sits on one of the deepest cyber-talent pools in the country. Most of it wears a uniform right now. Fort Eisenhower, renamed from Fort Gordon in October 2023, is the home of Army cyber. The base hosts Army Cyber Command, the Cyber Center of Excellence, and the National Security Agency's Georgia site. Thousands of cleared cyber professionals work there every day.

Here is the gap. A lot of midsize companies in and around Augusta never tap this pool. They post a SOC analyst role on a job board. They wait. Meanwhile the best cyber talent in the region is finishing a tour two miles away. Those people are about to take off the uniform. They have a clearance, real network defense reps, and no idea your company exists.

This guide shows you how to find them. We will cover what each base mission produces, how to read a military cyber resume, why a clearance matters so much, and how a midsize firm competes for this talent without a big budget. The goal is simple. Hire the cyber veteran before someone in Northern Virginia does.

Why Is Augusta Such a Strong Cyber-Talent Market?

The short answer is Fort Eisenhower. The base is the center of gravity for Army cyber. When the Army moved Cyber Command to Augusta, it pulled a huge amount of skilled people with it.

Army Cyber Command relocated from Virginia to Fort Eisenhower in 2020. It now works out of a building called Fortitude Hall. By the Army's own count, the command includes about 16,500 soldiers, federal civilians, and contractors. That is one command. It is not the whole base.

The base also hosts the Cyber Center of Excellence, the Army's school for cyber and signal training. It is the home of the Army Signal Corps too. So the base both trains cyber talent and runs live cyber operations. Add the National Security Agency's Georgia site, and you get a dense mix of network defense, signals, and intelligence work all in one metro.

For an employer, this matters in one specific way. A steady stream of people cycle through these jobs and then leave the service. They are trained, tested in real operations, and most hold a security clearance. They live in Augusta now. Some want to stay.

What Each Mission on Base Produces

Not every cyber veteran does the same work. The base runs a few distinct missions. Each one produces a different kind of hire. Read the work, not just the unit name.

One caution here. Not every person on base is an elite operator. The base is huge. It has cooks, supply clerks, and admin staff too. Read each resume for the actual work the person did. Do not assume a cyber badge from the location alone.

What Does a Cleared Cyber Veteran Actually Bring?

A cyber veteran from Augusta brings three things a job board candidate often does not. First, a clearance. Second, real operations under pressure. Third, a habit of working to a standard.

Start with the clearance, because it is the most valuable and the most misunderstood. A security clearance lets a person access classified information. There are three levels. Confidential is the lowest. Secret is the middle. Top Secret is the highest. Some roles add SCI access on top of Top Secret for the most sensitive work.

The clearance process is run by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA). Getting a person cleared takes time and money. So a candidate who already holds one saves you both. That is why cleared talent is worth chasing.

The DCSA has also changed how clearances stay valid. Under a program called Trusted Workforce 2.0, the old model of a big reinvestigation every several years is being replaced by continuous vetting. Continuous vetting runs automated checks on cleared people on an ongoing basis. The effect for you is simpler upkeep once a person is enrolled. Still confirm the current rules with DCSA, since policy keeps moving.

Beyond the clearance, these veterans have run real cyber operations. A SOC analyst at ARCYBER was not doing a lab exercise. They were watching live traffic on a target. That kind of experience is hard to fake and hard to teach.

How Do You Read a Military Cyber Resume?

This is where most employers stumble. A military cyber resume can look like a wall of acronyms. The skills are there. The words just do not match your job posting. Your job is to translate, not to filter the resume out.

Here is the most important point about how this works. An applicant tracking system does not reject a resume. It ranks them. A resume packed with military terms can sink to the bottom of your stack even when the person is a strong fit. So you have to read past the jargon yourself, or search for it on purpose.

A few terms come up again and again. Knowing them saves you from passing on a great hire. "17C" is an Army cyber operations specialist. "DCO" is defensive cyber operations, which is network defense. "DODIN" is the big Department of Defense network. A "CPT" is a cyber protection team. "TS/SCI" is a high-level clearance.

One more tip. Search both languages. When you source candidates, do not only search "SOC analyst." Also search "17C," "cyber operations," and "DCO." The veterans who fit you may describe themselves in military words. If you only search civilian words, you miss them.

Read for Scope and Standard

Look past the job title to the scale of the work. Did they defend one small system or a network with thousands of nodes? Did they lead people or work alone? A team lead at a cyber protection team managed both people and a mission. That is a supervisor in any language.

Veterans also bring a habit of working to a written standard. Cyber work in the military follows strict checklists and reporting rules. That discipline transfers straight into a SOC, a compliance shop, or a regulated industry. You are getting someone used to doing the job the right way, every time.

How Does a Midsize Company Compete for This Talent?

You do not need a Fortune 500 budget to win here. You need a clear pitch and a faster process. Most midsize firms lose cyber veterans because they are slow, not because they pay less. The big defense primes can be slow and impersonal. That is your opening.

Augusta is also a smaller city than the DC metro. That cuts both ways. There are fewer giant employers fighting over the talent. But the talent also has fewer local options, so many will look outside the region. If you move fast and make a real local offer, you keep them home.

SkillBridge is worth a closer look. It is a Department of Defense program that lets a service member do a civilian work placement during their final months of service. For you, it is a working tryout. You see the person do the job before you ever make an offer. The military keeps paying their salary the whole time. You can learn more on the official DoD SkillBridge site.

That low unemployment rate is the real point. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 3.4 percent jobless rate for post-9/11 veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan as of August 2025. Skilled cyber veterans get hired fast. If your process is slow, the person is already gone.

Where Do You Find These Veterans?

You have a few channels, and the best plan uses more than one. Each reaches the talent at a different point.

The Department of Labor also backs employers who hire from this group. The DOL Veterans' Employment and Training Service has free tools and guidance for companies building a veteran-hiring effort. Use them. They cost nothing.

The fastest channel is a candidate database you can search on your own terms. You search for the skill and the location yourself. You do not post a job and hope a cyber veteran finds it. That flips the work in your favor. You go to the talent instead of waiting on it.

This is where Best Military Resume fits. BMR is a veteran talent platform. Over 1,000 new veteran profiles are added every month. More than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. Many of those people describe the exact cyber work that happens at Fort Eisenhower. You can search for cyber skills and reach candidates directly.

What Should Your Hiring Process Change?

A few small fixes make a big difference with this talent. None of them cost much.

First, fix your job posting. Drop the wall of buzzwords. Write what the person will actually do, in plain words. List the clearance you need clearly. A cyber veteran reads a clear posting and knows in seconds if they fit.

Second, brief your hiring manager. Many managers undervalue a military resume because they cannot read it. Show them the translation table above. Teach them that "17C" and "SOC analyst" can be the same person. One short briefing saves you good candidates.

Third, set a hard date. Decide that you will get an offer out within a week of a strong interview. Put it on the calendar. Speed is the single biggest edge a midsize firm has over a slow prime.

Get Started Hiring Cyber Veterans in Augusta

Augusta hands you a rare advantage. The cyber talent is local, trained, and mostly cleared. The base produces a fresh wave of it every year. Your competition is mostly slow and far away. All you have to do is show up early and move fast.

Read the resumes for the work, not the acronyms. Search both military and civilian terms. Use SkillBridge to try people out before you commit. Brief your managers so they stop screening out strong veterans by accident. And get to these people before they finish their last tour.

If you want a faster way to reach cyber veterans directly, that is exactly what we built. Best Military Resume gives you access to a growing pool of veteran candidates, many of them cleared and many from the cyber world. Reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool and start finding your next cyber hire in Augusta.