If you run a business in Anchorage, you have a hiring edge most employers in the Lower 48 do not. Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson sits right in your backyard. JBER puts thousands of trained service members into the Anchorage area every year. Many of them separate and want to stay in Alaska.

Alaska also has the highest share of veterans of any state. About 1 in 10 Alaskans is a veteran. That is a deep, local talent pool. Most of these folks live in Anchorage, the Mat-Su Valley, or up near Fairbanks. You do not have to recruit them from far away. They are already here.

The trick is knowing how to reach them and how to read what they bring. This guide breaks it down for a midsize Anchorage employer. We will cover what skills come off JBER, where to find these candidates, and how to screen a military resume without getting lost in the jargon.

Why is Anchorage such a strong veteran hiring market?

Anchorage is a small, tight labor market. It is far from everywhere else. That makes local hiring matter more than it does in a big metro. You cannot always pull workers in from the next city over. When a good candidate is already in town, that is gold.

JBER feeds that pool every single year. It is a joint base. That means both Air Force and Army people work and live there. The base support wing, the 673d Air Base Wing, includes over 5,500 joint military and civilian personnel. The wider JBER community tops 40,000 military-affiliated people. The base is home to Air Force flying units, the Army's 11th Airborne Division, and dozens of tenant units. Source: army.mil/11thairborne.

Plenty of those service members put down roots in Alaska. They buy homes here. Their kids go to school here. When they separate, many want to stay. A good number have already lived through Alaska winters. They are not going to quit on you in November.

That last point is real. Cold-weather grit and isolation are part of the deal up here. A veteran who chose to stay in Alaska has already proven they can handle it. That is a retention signal you do not get from an out-of-state hire who flies up and bails after one dark winter.

What kinds of skills come off JBER?

JBER is a joint base, so the talent is mixed. You get airmen and soldiers separating at the same time. Each side brings different strengths. Knowing the mix helps you target your job posts.

The 3rd Wing flies F-22 Raptors, C-17 Globemaster III cargo planes, and E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft. That means a lot of aircraft maintenance, avionics, air operations, and logistics talent. These are people who keep complex machines running on a tight schedule with zero margin for error.

The Army side is built around the 11th Airborne Division and its 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), the Spartans. This is the Army's Arctic airborne unit, based right at JBER. Their mission is to fight and win in extreme cold and high-latitude terrain. Source: army.mil/11thairborne.

From the Army side you get infantry leaders, medics, vehicle and equipment mechanics, supply and logistics, signal and communications, and a lot of frontline supervisors. Add in the base support roles on both sides: security forces, fuels, civil engineering, fire and emergency, IT, and medical.

Here are the talent buckets an Anchorage employer should target most.

One thing to hold onto: not every JBER veteran is a pilot or an infantry soldier. The base runs like a small city. It needs cooks, drivers, finance clerks, HR staff, and mechanics. Read the work the person actually did. Do not assume the job title tells the whole story.

How do I read a military resume without getting lost?

This is where a lot of Anchorage employers freeze up. A military resume can look like a wall of codes and acronyms. The instinct is to skip it. Do not. The skills are real. They are just written in a different language.

Your job is to translate. Look at what the person managed, fixed, led, or moved. Ignore the unit names and focus on the verbs and the scale. A "crew chief" who ran a flight line maintenance shop is a maintenance supervisor. A "92Y" who ran a supply room is a logistics and inventory pro.

Here is a quick before-and-after to show what good translation looks like.

See the difference? Same person. Same work. The right column is what you would put in a job ad. The candidate did the work. They just need a reader who can see it.

If you want a deeper screening framework, we wrote a full guide on how to evaluate a veteran's resume. It walks through line by line what to look for.

Does ATS hurt my chances of finding these candidates?

Your applicant tracking system is not the villain here. But it can quietly hide good veterans from you. ATS ranks and stacks resumes by keyword match. A strong veteran resume can sink to the bottom of the pile just because the words do not line up.

Here is why. A military candidate writes "PMCS" or "preventive maintenance checks." Your job ad says "equipment inspection." The system does not know those are the same thing. So the veteran ranks low. They never surface to the top. You never see them. The skill was there the whole time.

The fix is simple. Search both languages. When you source or screen, include the military terms and the civilian terms side by side. Search for "logistics" and "92A" and "supply NCO." Search for "mechanic" and "crew chief" and "MOS 91B." You will surface people your competitors miss.

Where do I actually find JBER veterans in Anchorage?

You have several channels. The best plan uses more than one. Here is where to look, in rough order of effort.

Start with the base transition office at JBER. Every base runs one. It helps service members get ready for civilian work. The Military and Family Readiness Center on base connects separating members with local employers. Building a relationship there is one of the highest-value moves you can make. You get in front of people months before they hit the open market.

Next, use Alaska state veteran employment services. The state runs job-help programs aimed at veterans. These offices know the local market and can refer candidates straight to you. We cover this channel in detail in our guide to recruiting through state veteran employment offices.

The federal DOL VETS program also helps employers connect with veteran talent and explains hiring resources. You can start at the DOL VETS employer hiring page.

And of course, you can tap a ready candidate pool like BMR. We add over 1,000 new veteran profiles every month and have built more than 60,000 resumes. Many of those candidates are already in resume-ready shape and open to work.

If you hire across more than one site, not just Anchorage, our guide on sourcing veterans across multiple locations will help you run a repeatable process. And to gauge your local supply, see how many veterans are in your local talent pool.

What is SkillBridge and can it help me hire from JBER?

SkillBridge is a Department of Defense program. It lets service members work a civilian job during their last few months of service. They train at your company. The military keeps paying their salary during that time. You get to try them out at no payroll cost to you.

This is a strong tool for an Anchorage employer. JBER has people starting their SkillBridge search all the time. You host them. You see their work up close. If they are a fit, you make an offer when they separate.

One important rule. SkillBridge is a tryout, not a hire. The person is still on active duty during the program. You cannot put them on your payroll yet. You make the formal job offer for after their separation date. Treat it like a long working interview.

Becoming a SkillBridge host takes some setup, but it pays off. You build a steady pipeline straight from the base. For the candidate side of how this works, our guide on recruiting through base transition offices ties it together.

Should I offer remote roles to reach more Alaska veterans?

Yes, where it makes sense. Alaska is huge and spread out. Many veterans live outside Anchorage, in the Mat-Su Valley or near Fairbanks. A remote-friendly role widens your reach across the whole state, not just one city.

Remote work also fits the Alaska reality. Long drives and weather can make a daily commute hard. A veteran who is great at IT, logistics planning, or customer support can do that work from home. You get the skill without forcing a relocation or a brutal commute.

This is a real advantage for a midsize employer. Big companies sometimes lock roles to one office. You can be more flexible. We break down how to do this well in our guide on how remote-first companies can hire veterans.

The Anchorage market is small. But when you add JBER, the statewide veteran pool, base transition offices, SkillBridge, and remote flexibility, you have more reach than most local employers ever use.

What about Alaska's other military and the JBLM connection?

JBER is the big one in Anchorage. But Alaska has more. Fort Wainwright sits near Fairbanks and hosts the 11th Airborne Division's other brigade, the Arctic Wolves. Eielson Air Force Base is up there too. The Coast Guard runs stations around the state. Veterans from all of these may end up in Anchorage.

If your company also hires in the Lower 48, the same playbook works near other bases. For example, employers in Washington State use the same approach near Joint Base Lewis-McChord. See our guide on recruiting veterans near JBLM for that market.

The point is the same everywhere. Get close to the base. Learn to read the resume. Search both languages. Move before the candidate hits the open job board. Do that in Anchorage and you will out-hire competitors who never bother to learn how.

Start hiring JBER veterans the smart way

Anchorage employers have a built-in edge. JBER puts trained, disciplined people into your market every year. Alaska has the highest veteran share in the nation. Many of these veterans want to stay. They have already survived the winters, which is a retention signal you cannot buy.

Your move is to make it easy for them to find you. Build a tie to the base transition office. Register with state veteran services. Search military and civilian terms together so good resumes do not sink in your ATS. Offer remote roles where you can to reach the whole state.

When you are ready to reach veteran candidates who are already resume-ready and open to work, BMR can connect you with our pool. We add over 1,000 new veteran profiles every month. Reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool and start hiring local. You can also learn more about a partnership with BMR.