You run hiring for a Phoenix company. You want to bring in veterans. Good call. But the West Valley market is busier than most people think. Luke Air Force Base sits in Glendale, just west of downtown. It trains some of the most skilled people in the Air Force. The catch is that every other employer in the Valley wants them too.

Phoenix gives you two pools, not one. There are the airmen separating out of Luke right now. And there is a huge bench of veterans who already live here. Arizona is one of the top states veterans move to after service. So you can hire a fresh separation or a settled second-career vet. Both are sitting in your metro.

This guide breaks down what Luke produces and where to find these people. It also shows how to read their resumes without missing a strong hire. It is written for a midsize Phoenix employer. You do not need a giant veteran program to win here. You need a plan and a place to look.

What kind of talent does Luke Air Force Base produce?

Luke is home to the 56th Fighter Wing, the largest fighter wing in the Air Force. Its job is to train fighter pilots and the people who keep the jets flying. The base flew its last F-16 training sortie in early 2025. It now trains F-35 pilots almost exclusively. A large simulator buildout is landing through 2026.

A pilot-training base is more than pilots. The wing graduates more than 400 pilots and more than 300 air control professionals each year. Behind them is a deep layer of maintenance, logistics, security, and operations people. That layer is where most of your civilian hires come from.

Here is the talent the base puts into the market each year.

Notice that none of these jobs need you to hire a pilot. The base trains world-class aviators. But your open roles probably want the maintainer, the supply tech, or the security airman. Those people separate in real numbers every year. And they often want to stay in the Valley.

Why is the Phoenix veteran market different?

Most base-city markets give you one pipeline. Phoenix gives you two.

The first is the Luke pipeline. These are airmen leaving the base. Some plan to stay in Arizona. Some are figuring out where to go next. They are fresh out, sharp, and looking.

The second pipeline is bigger and older. Arizona is one of the largest veteran-population states in the country. State data puts the figure well above 450,000 veterans. Many came here after service for the weather, the cost, or family. These people already live in your metro. They have a few years of civilian work behind them. They are a different kind of hire than a fresh separation. Want a sense of the scale? Our guide on how many veterans are in your local talent pool shows how to size the bench in any metro.

Hiring a settled second-career veteran is its own skill. Their military service may be five or ten years back. The recent work is civilian. Our guide on hiring veterans re-careering after service covers how to read those resumes well.

There is a downside to a market this deep. Everyone wants these people. Phoenix is a fast-growing metro with a strong civilian labor market. You are not the only one hiring. Semiconductor plants from TSMC and Intel. Aerospace firms. Healthcare systems. Big logistics and construction shops. They all chase veteran talent too. The chip fabs hire hard from this pool. We cover that in our guide on hiring veterans for semiconductor manufacturing.

So a deep bench cuts both ways. There are more veterans to hire. There is also more competition for each one. The fix is to look earlier and look in the right place. The next two sections cover both.

Where do you find Phoenix veterans before they leave the base?

The worst time to start is when the airman is already gone. Once they separate, they are on the open market with everyone else. The goal is to build a relationship while they are still in uniform. That early-sourcing habit is the heart of our guide on building a veteran talent pipeline before reqs open.

Here is a sourcing order that works for a midsize Phoenix employer.

For more on working a base transition office as a channel, see our employer guide to base TAP offices. The state can help too. The Arizona Department of Veterans' Services connects veterans with jobs and benefits across the state. The federal side helps as well. The Department of Labor employer page lists resources and regional coordinators who help employers find veterans in their area.

How do you read a Luke airman's resume?

A military resume can read flat to a civilian eye. The person trained on a $100 million jet. The resume says they did maintenance. That gap is on the writing, not the candidate. Your job is to read past the words.

Air Force people are trained to be brief and to give the team credit. So their resumes often undersell. A strong maintainer might write one plain line about a job that took years to master. Read for the scope of what they ran, not the polish of how they wrote it.

One more thing on screening. If you use software to sort applications, know what it does. An applicant tracking system racks and stacks resumes by keyword match. A strong veteran with plain military wording can sink in the ranking even when they are a great fit. They do not get filtered out. They just sit lower than they should. So scan the lower part of your stack by hand when you hire from a base like Luke.

When a resume reads thin, do not pass. Ask one question in a screen call. Say, "Walk me through a time the plan fell apart and you had to keep the mission going." Their answer tells you more than the resume ever will.

Watch for one more signal on Luke resumes. Many of these airmen held a security clearance. Maintainers, security forces, and operations people often do. A clearance is hard to get and expensive to sponsor. If a candidate held one in service, that is a real asset for any role that touches sensitive work. It also tells you they passed a deep background check. For defense and aerospace shops in the Valley, that line on the resume is worth a second look.

How do you keep a veteran hire once you land them?

Hiring is half the job. Keeping the person is the other half. Veterans leave a new employer for the same reason anyone does. The role was not what they were told. The path forward was not clear.

So set the role straight on day one. Give the new hire a real picture of the work and the next step up. Veterans are used to a clear chain and a clear mission. Give them both. Pair them with someone who can answer the small questions a new civilian job throws at them. That early support pays off in retention.

One veteran who stays and does well becomes your best recruiter. They tell people still in. They send you warm referrals. A good hire from Luke this year can bring you two more next year. That is how a midsize employer builds a steady veteran pipeline without a big budget.

How does a midsize employer compete for these veterans?

You are up against semiconductor giants and big aerospace firms. You cannot always win on pay or brand. So win on the things a midsize company does better.

Move fast. Big companies are slow. A veteran on the way out has bills and a timeline. If you can give a clear answer in days, not weeks, you stand out. Put a real hire date in front of them.

Be clear about the role. Veterans value a straight answer. Tell them what the job is, what it pays, and what the next step looks like. Vague postings lose to clear ones.

One note on fairness. You can choose to source more from veteran channels. That adds candidates to your pool. You should not screen anyone out based on military status or any protected trait. Adding a source is different from filtering people out. This is general information, not legal advice. Check the rules for your situation with your own counsel.

The veteran market is also healthy, which means you have to bring a real offer. The unemployment rate for Gulf War-era II veterans was 3.6 percent in 2025. Male veterans from that group, at 3.4 percent, were below male nonveterans at 4.3 percent, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. These are not people waiting around. The strong ones get hired fast.

How does BMR help you hire Phoenix veterans?

Cold sourcing is slow. You post a role and wait. The strong veterans get hired before they ever see your posting. A talent pool flips that. You search people who are already looking and already framed for civilian work.

That is what Best Military Resume gives you. The pool adds more than 1,000 new veteran profiles every month. More than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. These are veterans who took their military background and put it into civilian terms a hiring team can read. Many list a location and a field, so you can find Phoenix-area talent fast.

You do not need a giant program to start. A midsize Phoenix employer can fill one open role with one focused search. Look in the field you need. Reach out. Move on the strong fits before the big names do. To build this into a repeatable motion, our veteran recruiting strategy playbook lays out the full system.

Want access to the pool? Reach out through our hire page and we will help you find veterans in your area. If you want a longer-term sourcing relationship, you can also partner with us to build a steady pipeline.

For more on the Southwest market, see how this plays out in another big base city in our guide on recruiting veterans near San Diego's military bases. The market math is different in each metro, but the playbook holds.