Universities are some of the biggest employers in their towns. A single campus runs a power plant, a police force, a hospital, a network operations center, a logistics warehouse, and a research enterprise. That is a lot of jobs. Most of them have nothing to do with teaching.

And most of them are hard to fill. Facilities crews are short. Public safety has open posts. Research labs need steady technicians. IT can't hire fast enough. Universities compete with private firms that pay more, and they often lose.

Veterans are a strong answer here, and most campus HR teams under-use them. Service members run exactly these systems on active duty. They show up on time, follow process, and stay calm when something breaks at 2 a.m. They also already cluster on your campus, since student veterans use their GI Bill benefits there every term. This guide shows a midsize college or university how to find them, read their resumes, and move fast enough to land them.

Why are veterans a strong fit for university jobs?

A campus is a small city. It has its own infrastructure, its own safety force, its own supply chain, and its own rules. Veterans spent years running cities like that on bases around the world.

The job market also favors you right now. Veteran unemployment was low in 2025, which means the strongest candidates get hired quickly. If your process is slow, you lose them. Speed is the whole game.

There is a second reason that is specific to higher ed. Student veterans already live on your campus. They came for school. Many want to stay in the area after they graduate. Some want a part-time campus job while they study. That is a built-in pipeline most employers do not have.

Federal programs deepen that pool. The VA's VetSuccess on Campus program (VSOC) puts a VA counselor on participating campuses to help student veterans finish school and find work. The VITAL program (Veterans Integration to Academic Leadership) adds clinical and academic support. You do not run these programs, but they tell you something useful. Your campus may already have a counselor whose whole job is connecting these veterans to careers. That is a person worth knowing.

Which campus roles map best to military backgrounds?

Think about your org chart, not just one department. A university hires across many of the same fields the military trains people in. The match is closest on the operations side, where the work is nearly the same and the start is fast.

Here are the campus areas where veterans tend to land well.

The operations side is where you fill seats fastest. A veteran who ran a base power plant can read a campus chiller plant on day one. A former military police NCO understands access control and incident response without much ramp-up. That near one-to-one match is why facilities, safety, and IT should be your first targets.

Each of these has its own playbook. For the trades and plant side, the points in our guide on hiring veterans for facilities management carry straight over to a campus. For your police and safety teams, see our guide on building corporate security and public safety teams. If your campus runs a medical center, the same patterns apply to healthcare operations roles.

How do you read a military resume for a campus role?

This is where most campus HR teams get stuck. A military resume is full of titles and codes that look like another language. The skills are there. The words just need translating.

Do not screen a veteran out because the title does not match. Read for the work, not the label. A "92Y Unit Supply Specialist" managed inventory, tracked accountable property worth millions, and ran audits. On a campus that is procurement and warehouse work. The match is strong once you decode it.

A few decode tips for your screeners. NCOIC means "non-commissioned officer in charge," so that person led a team. PMCS means routine equipment checks and preventive maintenance. A clearance on a resume means the person passed a federal background investigation, which matters for IT and research roles. When you train your recruiters to read both languages, your veteran pipeline opens up.

One more point on your screening tools. If you use an applicant tracking system, remember it racks and stacks resumes by keyword. It does not reject people on its own. A veteran who wrote "casualty care" instead of "patient care" sinks in the ranking, not out of the pile. Search for both terms so good people surface to the top. For a deeper walk-through, see how to read an NCOER, OER, or FITREP as a recruiter.

Where do you find veteran candidates on and near campus?

You have an advantage other employers do not. Veterans are already on your campus, and there are clear channels to reach them. Use the ones closest to you first.

The DoD SkillBridge program is worth a hard look for a university. The service member keeps getting paid by the military during the internship, so your cost is low. You get months to see how they work before you commit. Many campuses already host interns and never connect it to their staffing needs.

Two more campus-specific channels deserve their own playbooks. To reach the veterans already enrolled at your school, see how to recruit through campus veteran resource centers. To reach the wider pool of student veterans at two-year schools that feed your region, see how to recruit veterans through community colleges. If your campus career platform supports it, you can also use Handshake to recruit student veterans.

How should a midsize university adjust its hiring process?

A big state system may already run a veteran-hiring program. A midsize college usually does not. You do not need a huge budget to compete. You need a few small process changes that remove friction.

The biggest fix is speed. University hiring is famously slow. Committees, multiple sign-offs, and long gaps between steps. A separating service member has a hard date when their pay ends. If your process takes three months, they take another offer. Set a target timeline and hold to it.

Write your job posts in plain language too. Drop the jargon that only an insider understands. A clear post about what the job actually involves brings in more veteran applicants. For a full review of posting language, our guide on how to audit job reqs for veteran-hostile language walks through the common traps.

One note on compliance, and this is general guidance, not legal advice. If your university holds federal contracts or grants, you may already have veteran outreach duties under federal rules. Many universities do. Loop in your compliance office early so your veteran hiring effort lines up with what you already owe. Your HR and people-operations team can lead this, and the patterns in our guide to hiring veterans for HR roles apply to building that internal team.

How is hiring veterans for jobs different from recruiting student veterans?

These two efforts get confused on campus, so it helps to draw the line. One is about staffing your university. The other is about enrolling students. They overlap, but they are not the same job.

This guide is about column A, the staffing side. But the two feed each other. A student veteran graduating from your program is a perfect campus hire. They know your systems and your culture already. The smart play is to run both efforts and let them share leads.

What can BMR do for your campus hiring?

Best Military Resume is a veteran talent platform. The hardest part of veteran hiring is reach. You need a steady flow of candidates who already want these roles. That is what the pool gives you.

Two things make it work for a midsize campus. There are more than 1,000 new profiles added every month, so the pool stays fresh. And more than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform, which means deep coverage across the fields your campus hires for. You can search for facilities leads, network admins, lab techs, or campus safety candidates without waiting on a job board.

If your campus has open seats in facilities, safety, IT, research support, or admin, the candidates are out there. Many are already on your campus. Reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool and start filling those roles with people who already know how to run a small city.