You need techs who can climb a 300-foot tower in bad weather. You need them to read a wiring diagram, run cable, and not cut corners on safety. That is a small pool. The cellular buildout keeps moving. Crews retire faster than you can backfill them. So the field-tech job sits open for months.

There is a labor pool already trained for this work. Military signal and communications veterans. They strung field cable in the dirt. They stood up satellite links under a clock. They climbed structures with a harness on. They followed a safety checklist because a missed step got someone hurt. That is the exact muscle a tower and field-tech crew runs on.

This guide is for midsize telecom and tower-services companies. Not the national carriers with full recruiting teams. The regional tower owners, the turf vendors, the fiber and small-cell installers who need bodies on a truck next month. We will cover which military jobs map to field work, how to read a signal veteran's resume, and where to find these people before your competitor does. If you want the broader view, start with our guide on how to hire veterans for telecommunications roles. This piece zooms in on the boots-on-the-ground field and tower crew.

Why do signal veterans fit tower and field-tech work?

Military signal jobs are field work. These troops do not sit in a clean lab. They build and fix communications gear outside, on the move, in any weather. Pull that apart and you see the same tasks your field crew does every day.

They run and terminate cable. They raise antennas and mast systems. They aim and tune RF and satellite links. They troubleshoot a dead circuit at 2 a.m. with no one to call. They climb. They use a harness. They log their work. The gear has a green paint job instead of a carrier logo, but the skill is the same.

Two more things matter for a field crew. First, these veterans show up. The job runs on a schedule and they keep it. Second, they take safety seriously because the military drilled it into them. On a tower, that is not a soft skill. That is the difference between a clean job and a fatality.

Which military jobs map to tower and field-tech roles?

You do not need to learn every job code. But a few map almost one-to-one. When one of these shows up on a resume, slow down and read it. The candidate has done your work in a tougher setting.

The strongest match is the Air Force Cable and Antenna technician (1D7X3). That job is tower work in a uniform. They climb, they rig, they run line, they follow a fall-protection plan. On the Army side, the Multichannel Transmission Systems Operator (25Q) and the Satellite Communication Systems Operator (25S) both work RF and field links. The Marine Satellite Communications Operator-Maintainer (0627) is the same skill on the Marine side.

Do not stop at the obvious title. A signal job covers more ground than its name. Read the duties on the resume, not just the code.

How do you read a signal veteran's resume?

This is where most companies trip. The resume is full of terms you do not use. The hiring manager skims it, sees no carrier name, and moves on. That is a miss. The work is there. It just wears a different label.

Here is the swap to make in your head. Military comms gear does the same job as carrier gear. A field radio is an RF transmitter. A satellite terminal is a microwave link. A cable run in the dirt is a cable run up a tower. Translate the term and the fit gets clear.

A few terms to know. PMCS means scheduled preventive maintenance. RF means radio frequency, same as your world. SHF and microwave mean high-band links. An "AN/" code is just a military model number for a piece of gear. When you see these, the candidate has run real equipment in the field.

One more note. Their resume may be ranked low by your applicant tracking system. The system racks and stacks resumes by keyword match. A military resume with no carrier keywords sinks to the bottom. It does not get rejected. It just does not surface. So search your pool with both languages. Search "RF" and "antenna," not only "tower technician."

What about safety certs and tower-climbing rules?

This is the honest part. Military signal work builds the right base. It does not hand you a finished tower tech with every civilian cert in place. There is a gap. The good news is the gap is small and it is paperwork, not skill.

Tower work is governed by strict safety rules. OSHA's communication tower standards make fall protection and training mandatory before anyone climbs. The telecom field standard is 29 CFR 1910.268. It calls for safety belts and straps for work above four feet on poles and towers. Most field crews also want a few industry certs. Things like authorized climber and rescue training, RF awareness, and first aid or CPR.

Here is what to get right. A veteran who climbed in the military already worked under a fall-protection plan. They know to clip in. They know not to free-climb. They respect the harness. What they may not have is your specific civilian cert card. That is a short course, not a career change. Do not screen them out for a missing card they can earn in a week.

The play that works is simple. Hire on the proven base. Then close the cert gap in onboarding. You get a worker who already has the safety mindset and the field hands. You add the paperwork they were missing. That beats waiting six months for a fully papered tech who may never apply.

Where do you find these veterans before they are hired?

The best time to reach a signal veteran is right before they leave the service. Most never see your job post. They are not searching carrier job boards. They are finishing out their last few months on base. You have to go to where they are.

SkillBridge is worth a hard look for field work. A service member spends their last months on the job with you. You see how they climb, how they handle a truck day, how they treat safety. The military keeps paying their salary the whole time. If it works, you make an offer when they separate. If it does not, you part ways with no cost. It is the lowest-risk way to try a field hire.

The fastest channel, though, is a pool built for this. BMR adds more than 1,000 new veteran profiles every month. The pool holds more than 60,000 resumes built by veterans across every signal and comms field. You can search it for the exact background a tower or field-tech role needs.

How does a midsize company compete for this talent?

You are not the only one who wants these veterans. But you do not need a giant program to win. You need to move faster and be clearer than the next company.

Big carriers run slow. Their hiring takes weeks of forms and rounds. A midsize tower or fiber company can decide in days. That speed is your edge. A separating veteran with bills due will take a clear, fast offer over a drawn-out process every time.

Write the job post for a human. Say what the work is. Climbing, cable, RF, troubleshooting, on a truck most days. Say what you pay. Say you will cover the safety certs. A signal veteran reads that and knows it is for them. A post full of acronyms reads like a wall.

Brief your hiring manager too. Tell them a resume with no carrier names can still be a strong field tech. Have them look at the duties, not just the title. One bad screen and you lose a worker who would have stayed for years.

What does the demand for tower techs look like?

The numbers tell a real story, and it is not all one way. Overall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects telecom technician jobs to dip about 3 percent from 2024 to 2034. But that headline misses the field crew.

Two things matter more for you. First, about 23,200 openings show up each year over the decade. Almost all come from workers who retire or move on. The crew is aging out faster than it is being replaced. Second, BLS calls out that demand for radio, cellular, and tower equipment installers is expected to grow. New towers and cell sites keep going up. That is your slice, and it is the part that is growing.

So the math is clear. The work is not going away. The people who do it are. A steady source of trained, safety-minded field techs is not a nice-to-have. It is how you keep crews staffed while everyone else fights over the same shrinking pool.

This is the same crunch hitting other field trades. If you also staff line and grid work, see our guides on hiring veterans for power grid and transmission roles and EV charging field operations. The signal pool feeds all of these.

How do you start sourcing veteran field techs?

Start with one channel and run it well. Pick the candidate pool if you need bodies soon. Pick SkillBridge if you can plan a few months out. Do not try to do all of it at once. One channel done right beats four done halfway.

Get your job post right first. Plain words. Real pay. A note that you cover safety certs. Then point your search at signal and comms backgrounds. Filter for the jobs in the table above. When a 25Q or a 1D7X3 resume comes up, read the duties and call them.

BMR was built to make this part easy. The pool runs deep in signal and comms fields, and more than 1,000 new veteran profiles get added every month. You can search for the field-tech background you need and reach out today. To get access to the talent pool, head to our hire page. If you want to set up an ongoing pipeline for your crews, look at how to partner with us. The techs who can climb your towers are out there. Most of them just took off the uniform.