San Antonio calls itself Military City USA, and it earns the name. Joint Base San Antonio is the largest joint base in the Department of Defense. It runs across three main installations: Fort Sam Houston, Lackland, and Randolph. Add in 266 mission partners and you get one of the densest concentrations of separating military talent in the country.

For a hiring manager at a midsize company, that is a gift you may be walking past. Every year, thousands of service members leave the military through San Antonio. Many of them stay local. They already have the discipline, the security awareness, and the hands-on training your job posting is begging for. The catch is that most employers do not know how to reach them, or how to read what they bring.

This guide walks through how to recruit veterans near San Antonio. It covers what kind of talent the base actually produces, where to find them before they leave, and how to run a sourcing motion that fits a midsize budget. No big-program assumptions. Just the practical moves.

Why is San Antonio such a strong veteran hiring market?

The talent here is not random. JBSA is built around a few specific missions, and those missions decide what skills walk out the gate.

Fort Sam Houston is the home of Army medicine and the combat medic. Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston is the largest inpatient hospital in the Department of Defense, and the Medical Center of Excellence (MEDCoE) on the same installation is the largest military medical education and training campus in the world. That means a steady flow of medics, corpsmen, lab techs, and medical support staff. The 59th Medical Wing at Lackland is the Air Force's largest medical wing, which adds even more.

Lackland is also where every Air Force enlistee goes through basic training. On top of that, San Antonio has grown into a real cyber hub. The 16th Air Force and a heavy cyber and intelligence presence push out signals, network, and security talent. Randolph handles flying training and runs much of the Air Force's personnel and recruiting work.

So the local pool leans heavy in a few areas:

One more point in your favor. The national job market for these veterans is tight, but the talent keeps coming. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, veterans who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both had a jobless rate of 3.4 percent in August 2025. Low unemployment means good people, and San Antonio produces them at scale every year.

Where do you actually find these veterans before they leave?

The best time to reach a service member is before they separate. In San Antonio, the path runs through the base itself. You do not have to be a Fortune 500 company to get in the door. You have to show up and offer something real.

Start with the transition offices on base. Every installation runs a Transition Assistance Program. These offices help service members build resumes and plan their next move. They welcome local employers who have real jobs and treat the people with respect. A short list of open roles and a willingness to do a quick info session goes a long way. For the full playbook here, see our guide on recruiting veterans through base TAP offices.

Next, look at SkillBridge. This Department of Defense program lets service members do a civilian work placement during their last few months of service while the military still pays them. For you, that is a working tryout at almost no payroll cost. If it fits, you make an offer when they separate. JBSA pushes a lot of people into SkillBridge because of its size. Our breakdown on the SkillBridge provider directory for employers shows how to plug in.

You can also tap the local veteran network outside the gate. Texas has a state veteran employment service that connects employers with job seekers. Reddit and Facebook have active San Antonio veteran groups too. Just go in as a real person with a real job, not a recruiter spraying links. Our guide on how to recruit veterans in Reddit and Facebook groups covers the etiquette so you do not get banned.

How do you read a JBSA veteran's resume without getting it wrong?

This is where most employers lose good candidates. A veteran's resume can read like a foreign language if you do not know the codes. The fix is simple. Look past the jargon and ask what the person actually did.

Take a medic from Fort Sam Houston. The resume might say 68W or list a string of clinical acronyms. What it means is someone who ran patient care under pressure, managed supplies, and trained others. That maps straight to patient care tech, clinical operations, and medical support roles. If you hire in healthcare, see our employer guide on hiring combat medics and corpsmen.

Two patterns hold across almost every JBSA resume. First, rank and title tell you scope, not pay grade. A senior NCO ran teams, budgets, and operations. Treat that like the management experience it is. Second, a clearance is a real asset. Many JBSA cyber and intel veterans hold an active clearance. If your work touches government contracts, that is gold. We go deep on this in finding cleared veteran talent.

One note on your hiring tools. If you screen with an applicant tracking system, remember it ranks and stacks resumes by keyword match. It does not make the final call. A strong veteran can sink to the bottom of the list just because their resume uses military words. Search both the military term and the civilian term so good people surface to the top.

How do you compete for this talent on a midsize budget?

You are not the only employer eyeing San Antonio. Big defense primes and national health systems recruit here hard. The good news is you do not need their budget to win. You need to be faster and more human than they are.

Move quickly. Veterans separate on a fixed timeline. If your hiring process drags for six weeks, they take the offer that came first. Set a clear schedule and stick to it. A fast, respectful process beats a fat one.

Write postings in plain language. Drop the buzzwords and say what the job is, what it pays, and where it is. Veterans are used to clear orders. A vague posting reads like a red flag. Name the role, the location, and a real pay range.

Use your current veteran hires. Veterans trust other veterans. If you already have one or two on staff from San Antonio, ask them to spread the word in their old units and networks. A referral from someone who served carries more weight than any job ad. It also tells the next candidate your company is a safe place to land.

Lean on the calendar. Separations cluster around certain times of year as PCS and ETS cycles hit. If you time your outreach to those windows, you catch more people at the exact moment they are looking. Our guide on building a veteran sourcing calendar around PCS and ETS lays out the timing.

A quick legal note. When you target veterans, you are adding a candidate source, not screening people out by status. The Department of Labor supports employers who recruit veterans as a group, but hiring decisions still follow equal employment rules. This is general guidance, not legal advice. If you have questions about your own program, talk to your counsel.

Where does BMR fit into your San Antonio sourcing?

Walking the base and showing up at job fairs takes time. Most midsize teams do not have a full recruiter who lives in San Antonio. That is the gap BMR fills.

BMR is a veteran candidate database. Veterans build their civilian resume on the platform, then opt in to be found by employers. You search the pool, see candidates who already translated their military work into civilian terms, and reach out. The military jargon is already decoded, so you spend less time guessing.

The pool stays fresh. More than 1,000 new veteran profiles get added every month, and over 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. Many of those veterans come through high-volume markets like San Antonio. You get a steady stream of people who raised their hand and said they want to work.

San Antonio is one of the richest veteran hiring markets in the country. The talent is there, year after year, and most of your competitors still do not know how to reach it. Show up at the base, read resumes for the real work behind the jargon, and move faster than the big shops. That is how a midsize company wins here.

Want a head start on the pipeline? You can reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool and start searching candidates who are ready to work. For another base-city playbook, compare this with our guide on recruiting veterans near Norfolk.