Fort Cavazos sits right next to Killeen, Texas. It is one of the biggest Army posts in the country. Every year, thousands of soldiers leave the Army from this one installation. Most of them stay in Central Texas. They want to work near where they already live.

That is a hiring pool sitting in your backyard. Few midsize employers know how to reach it. They wait for veterans to find them through a job board. By then, the best people are already hired.

This guide shows you how to recruit veterans near Fort Cavazos. You will learn who is leaving and what they did in uniform. You will learn how to reach them before someone else does. If you run a midsize company in the Killeen, Temple, or Waco area, this is your edge. You do not need a big-company veteran program to use it.

I am Brad Tachi. I served as a Navy Diver. For years I have helped veterans turn their service into civilian jobs. I have watched what makes employers win this race. It comes down to speed and knowing how to read a service record.

Why is Fort Cavazos such a strong hiring pool?

The post was named Fort Cavazos from 2023 to 2025. In 2025 it returned to the name Fort Hood. Many locals still use both names. Either way, it is the same installation and the same talent pool. The post covers more than 218,000 acres. It is the only post in the country that can station and train two armored divisions at once, per the U.S. Army Fort Hood garrison.

The size is the point. More soldiers means more people separating every year. Fort Cavazos and Fort Liberty hold the two biggest concentrations of soldiers in the Army. That makes Central Texas one of the richest veteran talent markets in the country.

Here is what most employers miss. Soldiers who separate near a big post tend to stay close. They have a house here. Their spouse has a job here. Their kids are in school here. They are not chasing jobs across the country. They want work within driving distance of Killeen.

That low unemployment number tells you something. Good veterans get picked up fast. The Bureau of Labor Statistics put the all-veteran rate at 3.5% in 2025. The nonveteran rate was higher, at 4.2%. If you wait, you lose. The window between a soldier's separation date and their first civilian job is short. You want to be talking to them while they are still in uniform.

What jobs did Fort Cavazos soldiers actually do?

Fort Cavazos is an armored post. That word scares some employers. They picture tanks and think none of it maps to civilian work. That read is wrong.

The 1st Cavalry Division runs three armored brigade combat teams, division artillery, air cavalry, and a sustainment brigade. III Armored Corps is the headquarters above it. Behind every tank crew is a huge support machine. That machine is full of people you want to hire.

Think about what it takes to keep an armored division running. Someone tracks parts for hundreds of vehicles. Someone runs the fuel and ammo supply chain. Someone fixes diesel engines and complex electronics. Someone manages a motor pool. Someone leads a 40-person platoon and answers for every dollar of equipment.

These are not combat skills with no civilian use. These are the exact skills a logistics firm, a manufacturer, or a fleet operator pays good money for.

One more thing matters here. Not every soldier at Fort Cavazos was in a combat job. The post runs on supply clerks, medics, mechanics, HR specialists, and IT techs. Read the work, not the unit name. A soldier from an armored division may have spent four years doing pure logistics.

If you want help reading these records, start with our guide on how to read a military job title on a resume. It walks through the codes and titles you will see.

How do you reach veterans before they leave the post?

The biggest mistake is waiting. Most employers post a job and hope a veteran applies. By then the soldier may have signed somewhere else. You want to reach them during transition, not after.

Soldiers near separation go through a set of steps. They attend transition classes. They look for internships. They build a resume. Each step is a place you can meet them.

The base transition channel is real but slow. You have to build a relationship with the office. Our employer guide on recruiting veterans through base TAP offices covers how to do that the right way.

SkillBridge is the channel I tell midsize employers to use first. A soldier interns with you while the Army still pays them. You get months to see the work before you make an offer. If it fits, you convert them to a full-time hire after they separate. Our guide on converting a SkillBridge intern into a full-time hire shows the steps. You can read the program rules at the DoD SkillBridge site.

Why does a midsize company win this race?

Big defense firms and Fortune 500 names also recruit at Fort Cavazos. You might think they win every time. They do not. Midsize companies have real advantages here.

Speed is the first one. A big company runs a hire through six rounds and three approval layers. That takes weeks. A separating soldier needs a job now. If you can make a clean offer in days, you beat the slow giant.

The second edge is the role itself. Many veterans do not want to be a number in a 50,000-person company. They led people in the Army. They want a job where their work matters and they can see the result. A midsize firm offers that.

The third edge is location. A local soldier wants to stay near Killeen. A big firm may want them to relocate to a hub city. You are already where they want to be. That is a strong pull.

You do not need a big budget to compete. You need a fast process and a clear story about why the work matters.

How do you read a Fort Cavazos veteran's resume?

This is where most employers stumble. A veteran resume can read like a foreign language. The titles, the codes, and the acronyms hide a lot of skill. If you screen for the wrong words, you toss strong people.

Start by reading for scope, not for jargon. Look at how many people they led. Look at how much equipment they were responsible for. Look at the size of the budget or the supply line they ran. Those numbers tell you the real level of the job.

One note on how hiring software handles these resumes. Your applicant tracking system does not throw veteran resumes in the trash. It racks and stacks them by keyword match. A resume full of Army terms scores low against a civilian job posting. It sinks to the bottom of the list and never surfaces to your team. The skill is there. The keywords are not.

The fix is to search both languages. When you search your candidate pool, use military terms and civilian terms. Search for "motor sergeant" and "maintenance manager." Search for "92Y" and "supply chain." You will find people your competitors miss.

For a full walkthrough, read our guide to evaluating a veteran's resume. If you hire into supply or fleet roles, our pieces on hiring veterans for logistics and supply chain roles and fleet maintenance management go deeper.

How do you verify and onboard a Fort Cavazos hire?

Once you find a good fit, two steps protect the hire. First, verify the service. Second, onboard with a real plan.

Verification is simple. The DD-214 is the discharge document every veteran receives. It confirms service dates and the type of discharge. Ask for it near the offer stage, the same way you would run a background check. It is standard paperwork, not a resume. Our guide on verifying military service and reading a DD-214 shows what to look for.

Onboarding is where many veteran hires fail. Not because the person is wrong. Because no one told them what good looks like in the first month. Set clear goals. Assign a point of contact. Check in often. Our 90-day onboarding plan for veteran employees gives you a ready framework.

You can also see how the federal side handles veteran hiring at the Department of Labor VETS employer page. The same ideas apply to private employers.

How does this compare to other base markets?

Fort Cavazos is not the only post worth recruiting near. The play is the same at any big installation. Know the units, reach soldiers early, and read the records right.

If you hire across more than one region, the same approach works near other major posts. We have employer guides for recruiting veterans near Joint Base Lewis-McChord and for recruiting veterans near San Diego's military bases. Each market has its own units and its own mix of skills.

What stays the same is the core lesson. The talent is there. The employers who win are the ones who reach soldiers before they walk out the gate.

Where do you find Fort Cavazos veterans now?

You can drive to every job fair near Killeen. You can build a slow pipeline through the base. Both work. Both take time you may not have.

The faster path is a veteran talent pool that is already built and searchable. That is what Best Military Resume gives employers. Veterans build civilian resumes on the platform. Over 1,000 new profiles get added every month. More than 60,000 resumes have been built on the site so far.

That means you can search a pool of veterans who have already translated their service into civilian terms. Many of them are based in Texas and near posts like Fort Cavazos. You skip the slow part and get straight to the people who fit.

If you want access to that pool, reach out through our hire page. Tell us the roles you are filling. We will point you to the veteran talent that fits your needs.