You have open reqs on a rig, a pipeline crew, or a refinery unit. The applicant pool is thin. The people who do apply have never seen a wellhead. And the ones who can do the work get poached fast. Oil and gas has been fighting this hiring problem for years.

Here is a pool most companies in this space underuse. Veterans. They come out of the military already trained to run heavy equipment. They live by safety procedures. They work long rotations away from home and do not blink. That last part matters more in oil and gas than almost any other field.

This guide is built for the company side. It covers where to find veteran talent for upstream, midstream, and downstream roles. It shows how to read a military resume, how to interview, and how to keep these hires once you land them. The framing is for midsize operators and service companies. You do not need a giant veteran hiring program to start.

Why Do Veterans Fit Oil and Gas Work So Well?

Start with the schedule. Most field oil and gas jobs run on a hitch. Two weeks on, two weeks off. Or 14 and 7. You live in camp or a man-lodge during the hitch. You work 12-hour shifts. You are far from home.

That breaks a lot of civilian hires. They quit in the first month. Veterans do not. They spent years on deployments and underway rotations. Time away from home is normal to them. The hitch is not a shock.

Now the safety part. Oil and gas runs on procedures. Lockout/tagout. Hot work permits. Confined space entry. H2S monitoring. One shortcut can kill a crew. The military runs the same way. Checklists. Pre-op briefs. Two-person rules. A veteran does not see safety paperwork as red tape. They were raised on it.

Then there is the equipment. Pumps, engines, compressors, generators, hydraulic systems. Military jobs are full of this gear. A vet who kept a fleet of diesel trucks running in the desert can keep your field equipment running too. The setting is new. The skill is not.

What Oil and Gas Roles Can Veterans Fill?

Oil and gas splits into three stages. Each one has roles veterans can step into. Knowing the split helps you aim your search.

Upstream: drilling and extraction

This is the rig side. Getting oil and gas out of the ground. Roles here include roughnecks, floorhands, derrickhands, motorhands, and drillers. Also field operators, pumpers, and lease operators who run the well sites.

The work is physical and remote. It runs on hitches. This is where the military fit is strongest. A vet who handled hard physical work in rough conditions takes to a rig floor fast. Most companies start new hands as a floorhand and promote up.

Midstream: pipelines and transport

This stage moves the product. Pipelines, pump stations, compressor stations, and storage terminals. Roles include pipeline technicians, pump and compressor operators, terminal operators, and measurement techs.

This work rewards a procedures mindset. You monitor flow, pressure, and equipment. You respond to alarms. A veteran who stood watch on a ship's engineering plant knows how to run a control board. They react fast when a number goes wrong.

Downstream: refining and processing

This is the plant side. Refineries and gas processing plants turn crude into fuel and product. Roles include console operators, outside operators, board operators, and process unit operators. Plus the maintenance trades that keep the plant running.

Refinery operator jobs pay well and want reliable people who follow process discipline. Navy nuclear and engineering vets are a strong fit here. They ran complex plants under tight rules before they turned 25.

Treat that list as a starting point, not a fixed rule. Two people with the same job code can have very different field experience. Read the resume, not just the code. We will come back to that.

Want to match a specific military field to a specific req you have open? Our guide on mapping a military career field to your open reqs walks through how to do it.

Where Do You Find Veteran Candidates for Oil and Gas?

You will not find these people on a generic job board alone. You need channels built for the military community. Here are the ones that work.

SkillBridge host programs. SkillBridge lets service members intern with a civilian company in their last few months of service. The military keeps paying them. You get a working tryout at no labor cost. For a rig crew or a plant, this is a low-risk way to test a candidate on real work. Read the rules at the DoD SkillBridge site.

Base transition offices. Every base runs a transition program for people leaving service. They are always looking for employers with real jobs. Reach out to the ones near your operations.

Reach them before they separate. The best veteran hires are gone within weeks of leaving service. Build a pipeline that reaches them early. Our guide on hiring transitioning service members before separation shows how.

The BMR talent pool. Best Military Resume adds over 1,000 new veteran and military spouse profiles every month. These are people actively job searching, with resumes already built. You can reach them directly. Many list maintenance, equipment, and field operations backgrounds.

Want the full breakdown of channels? Our guide on where to post jobs to reach veteran candidates covers each one in depth. To skip the search and tap a ready pool, partner with BMR.

How Do You Read a Military Resume for an Oil and Gas Job?

This is where most companies trip. A military resume looks foreign. Job codes. Acronyms. Awards you have never heard of. So a good candidate gets passed over because the screener could not see the skill.

The fix is simple. Read the duties, not the code. Ignore the job title at first. Look at what the person actually did. Did they run equipment? Lead a crew? Manage a fuel point? Stand a watch? That is your signal.

Same resume. One read kills the candidate. The other hires them. The skill was there the whole time.

If you want a deeper screen, our recruiter checklist for screening veteran applicants gives you a step-by-step process. You can also look up what a specific code maps to. The Army's 92F Petroleum Supply Specialist career guide and the 92L Petroleum Laboratory Specialist guide show the civilian fit for fuel and lab roles. The Air Force 2F0X1 Fuels career guide covers another strong source field.

How Should You Interview a Veteran for a Field Role?

Two things change when you interview a veteran. Both are fixable once you know them.

First, they undersell. The military trains people to credit the team, not themselves. So a vet says "we kept the unit running" when they personally led the maintenance. Dig in. Ask "what was your part in that?" The real answer is usually impressive.

Second, they speak in code. Acronyms slip out. Help them translate. Ask "what would that look like at a pump station?" Most vets just need a beat to map their experience to your world.

For field roles, run a hands-on test. Put them near the equipment. Watch how they approach a problem. Do they check before they act? Do they ask about the safety procedure first? That instinct is what you are buying. It does not show up on paper.

What Does the Labor Market Look Like?

Oil and gas hiring is replacement-driven. The workforce is aging out. New people have to come in to fill the gaps left by retirements. That is your opening.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks the field. Median pay for oil and gas workers was $52,610 in May 2024. Overall employment is projected to grow about 1 percent from 2024 to 2034. But about 10,600 openings a year are expected over that decade, most from workers leaving the field. You can read the full data on the BLS Oil and Gas Workers outlook.

Downstream pays more. Petroleum pump system operators, refinery operators, and gaugers earned a mean wage of about $96,650 in May 2024. These are skilled control-room and plant jobs. They reward the procedures discipline a veteran already has.

The veteran labor market is tight too, but in your favor. The unemployment rate for all veterans was 3.5 percent in 2025, lower than the 4.2 percent rate for nonveterans, per the BLS Employment Situation of Veterans. These are working people, not a charity hire. You are competing for them. Speed and a clear offer win.

Can You Cut Hiring Costs With a Tax Credit?

Maybe, depending on the year. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit has long given employers a federal credit for hiring from certain groups, including some veterans. When it is active, the credit can run into thousands of dollars per qualified hire. For a company filling many field roles, that adds up.

There is a process when the credit is active. You file paperwork around the time of hire to certify the worker qualifies. The rules and amounts change, so confirm current details with the Department of Labor VETS office before you build it into your budget. We cover the full process and the latest status in our Work Opportunity Tax Credit guide for hiring veterans.

How Do You Keep Veteran Hires Once You Land Them?

Sourcing is half the job. Keeping them is the other half. Field oil and gas burns through people. Hold onto a good hire and you save the cost of finding the next one.

Give structure on day one. Veterans are used to a clear chain and a clear standard. Tell them who they report to. Tell them what good looks like. Vague rollouts lose them.

Pair them with a strong lead for the first hitch. Someone who knows the site and will answer questions. The veteran will learn fast and respect a mentor who knows the work.

Show a promotion path. A floorhand wants to know how to become a driller. A field tech wants to know how to run a station. Vets came from a system with ranks and clear steps up. Show them yours and they will stay to climb it.

Where Should You Start?

Start with one hire. You do not need a program. Pick one open field or plant role. Source it through a veteran channel. Read the resume for duties, not codes. Run a hands-on interview. Give the new hire structure and a mentor.

Do that once and you will see the fit for yourself. Then do it again. That is how a real veteran pipeline gets built. One good hire at a time.

BMR adds over 1,000 new veteran and military spouse profiles every month, with more than 60,000 resumes built on the platform. That is a fresh, growing pool of people who are ready to work and used to the kind of conditions oil and gas hands face. To reach them, partner with us. We will connect you with veteran talent that fits your open roles.