El Paso sits right next to one of the biggest Army posts in the country. Fort Bliss is home to about 90,000 soldiers and family members. Every year, a steady stream of them leave the service and look for work. Most want to stay in El Paso. They like the cost of living. They have kids in school here. Their spouse has a job here.

That is a hiring advantage you can use. The talent is already in your backyard. The hard part is reaching it before someone else does. This guide breaks down what is at Fort Bliss and which roles the post produces. Then it shows how a midsize El Paso employer can hire that talent on a small budget.

I am Brad Tachi, founder of Best Military Resume. I work with separating service members every day. The patterns below come from what I see every day. What veterans bring to the table, and what trips up the firms trying to hire them.

Why is Fort Bliss such a strong talent source?

Fort Bliss is not a small post. It is one of the largest installations in the Department of Defense. The numbers matter for your pipeline.

The biggest tenant is the 1st Armored Division. It holds around 17,000 soldiers. Add the other units and you get a deep, steady supply. People rotate out of the service here all year long. Many of them never leave town.

Here is what the post produces beyond combat skills. Fort Bliss runs tanks, artillery, aviation, and large supply operations. It also hosts the 32d Army Air and Missile Defense Command and the Joint Modernization Command. The William Beaumont Army Medical Center is here too. The post is also home to the U.S. Army Noncommissioned Officer Academy (formerly the NCO Leadership Center of Excellence). That last one is worth a pause. It means a lot of the people leaving here were trained to lead and to teach other leaders.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the all-veteran unemployment rate at 3.5 percent in 2025. That is a tight market. But near a post the size of Fort Bliss, the supply is constant. New people separate every month. Your job is to catch them at the right moment.

What kinds of roles does the El Paso veteran pool fill?

The mix at Fort Bliss points to a few clear strengths. You should match your open roles to what the post actually trains people to do.

Armor and artillery units run fleets of heavy equipment. That builds maintenance leads, fleet managers, and parts and supply coordinators. The medical center turns out medics, lab techs, and health-services people. Air and missile defense work builds technical operators and people who manage complex systems under pressure.

And almost everyone leaving as a sergeant or above has led people. Squad leaders, platoon sergeants, shop foremen. They ran teams, tracked budgets, and kept things on schedule.

One caution. Do not assume every soldier leaving Fort Bliss is a combat-arms type. The post is broad. It holds medical, technical, and support roles too. Read each resume for the actual work, not the unit name.

How do you reach veterans before they leave the service?

Timing wins here. A separating soldier starts job hunting months before their last day. If you wait until they are out and applying, you are late. Better employers get in front of them while they are still in uniform.

The cleanest way in is the DOD SkillBridge program. It lets service members work a civilian job during their last 180 days of service. The military keeps paying them. You get a working tryout at no payroll cost. If it goes well, you make an offer when they separate.

You can learn how to become a host at the official SkillBridge site. A midsize El Paso firm can host one or two interns at a time. You do not need a big formal program. You need a real job for them to do.

The other early channel is the transition office on post. Soldiers go through a transition program before they leave. Build a relationship there and you get a steady line to people weeks from their last day.

For more on this timing, see our guide on how to source veterans before their separation date.

How do you read a Fort Bliss resume the right way?

A military resume can look strange at first. The job titles and codes do not match civilian ones. That gap is real, but it is a translation problem, not a skill problem. The skills are there. You just have to read past the wording.

Two things help. First, look for scope. How many people did they lead? How much equipment or budget did they control? Second, search the resume for both the military term and the civilian one. A motor sergeant is a maintenance manager. A supply NCO is a supply chain coordinator.

Your applicant tracking system can hide good people here. It racks and stacks resumes by keyword match. A strong veteran who used military words sinks to the bottom of the pile. No one is throwing the resume away. It just never surfaces to the top. So search both languages when you screen, or your best Fort Bliss candidates stay buried.

For a deeper walkthrough, read what a veteran's service record tells you and how to spot project management experience on a military resume.

How does a midsize El Paso employer compete for this talent?

You will not always win on pay. A large defense contractor or a federal agency may beat your salary number. But you can win on other things that matter to a separating soldier.

Speed is your biggest lever. Big companies move slow. Their hiring takes weeks of panels and approvals. A midsize firm can interview on Tuesday and make an offer on Friday. A soldier with a family and a clock running on their last paycheck values that.

Stability is another edge. Many soldiers want to put down roots after years of moving. If your job lets them stay in El Paso, say so up front. That is a real benefit to someone tired of orders to a new base every few years.

Then coach the hiring manager. A manager who has never worked with a veteran may misread a confident, direct candidate. Teach them what to listen for. Our guides on how to coach a manager to lead a veteran employee and how to keep a veteran new hire past one year help here.

Where does El Paso fit into the bigger picture?

Fort Bliss is one of many posts feeding local labor markets. The same playbook works near other big installations. If you hire across regions, it helps to see how other base towns run.

We have local guides for several markets. Look at how employers hire near Luke Air Base in Phoenix, near Travis AFB in Sacramento, and near Camp Pendleton in Oceanside. The unit mix changes, but the timing and translation rules stay the same.

If you want cleared talent, the rules shift a bit. Posts like MacDill in Tampa and Redstone in Huntsville have a heavier clearance flavor. Fort Bliss leans more toward armor, logistics, and medical. Match the post to the roles you actually need.

The federal side also gives you a useful map. The Department of Labor's hire-a-veteran resources lay out the programs and contacts that support employers who want to hire from posts like Fort Bliss.

How do you keep an El Paso veteran hire from leaving?

Hiring is only half the win. The first year is where a lot of veteran hires walk. Not because they cannot do the work. They leave for two reasons. The job feels nothing like what they were told. Or no one helped them adjust.

The fix starts before day one. Be honest in the interview about what the role actually involves. A soldier who ran a maintenance shop knows when a job is being oversold. If the work is repetitive for the first six months, say that. They can handle a hard truth. They cannot handle a bait and switch.

Give them a clear first 90 days. Veterans come from a world of clear orders and clear standards. A vague "figure it out" start frustrates them fast. Lay out what good looks like in week one, month one, and month three. Our guide on how to use a 30-60-90 plan to onboard a veteran walks through exactly how to build that.

Do this and your retention climbs. A Fort Bliss hire who feels set up to win tends to stay. They also tell other separating soldiers where the good jobs are. Word travels fast in a military town.

How can BMR help you hire El Paso veterans?

Reaching this talent at the right time is the whole game. That is where Best Military Resume comes in. We sit on the candidate side. Veterans build and tailor their resumes with us. That gives us a growing pool of people getting ready to job hunt.

Two numbers tell the story. We have over 1,000 new profiles added every month. And we have 60,000 resumes built on the platform. That is a fresh, steady stream of veteran candidates, many of them near posts like Fort Bliss.

If you want a line into that pool, reach out through our hire page. Tell us the roles you need to fill in El Paso. We will help you connect with veteran talent that fits, before someone else gets there first.