Black Powder Search

For employers

You are not taking a chance on a veteran.

The people we place have already made the transition. They cleared selection, earned the degree, and then spent years delivering commercial results — which is the part most veteran-hiring pipelines never verify, and the part that decides whether your hire works out.

The problem we solve

Military experience does not translate itself.

A résumé that reads "Sergeant Major, 7th Special Forces Group" tells a hiring manager almost nothing about whether this person can run a $40m P&L or a 140-person field organization. So strong candidates get filtered out by keyword screens, and the ones who get through arrive as a gamble.

We solve that by only representing people who have already proved it on the commercial side. Every candidate has a civilian track record you can check, in language you already use.

3XV — Triple vetted talent

  1. 01

    Academic achievement

    Degree-holding and frequently graduate level, often earned alongside an operational career rather than instead of one.

  2. 02

    Special Operations service

    Selection, training and deployment in the most demanding environments the U.S. military operates in.

  3. 03

    Proven corporate excellence

    A documented record of commercial results after service. This is the pillar that separates our pool from a transition program — we represent operators who have already made the jump and delivered.

Engagement models

Pick the one that fits the role

Retained executive search

Exclusive, upfront-fee engagement for senior or specialized roles. We work only with you on that role and run a dedicated, exhaustive search of the Special Operations talent pool.

Best for: Senior leadership and specialized roles where the wrong hire is expensive.

Detail →

Contingent search

Fee paid only on successful placement, with no upfront cost. Flexible enough to run alongside other firms, and suited to mid- and lower-level positions.

Best for: Mid-level roles, and teams that want to run several firms in parallel.

Detail →

Outsourced recruiting

Full-cycle recruiting run on your behalf — sourcing, screening, interviewing and onboarding — so your own team stays on the work only they can do.

Best for: Companies scaling without internal recruiting capacity.

Detail →

What happens

From first call to a hire that sticks

  1. 01

    Intro and onboarding

    An onboarding call with our COO and the lead recruiter to establish what the business actually needs — not just what the job description says.

  2. 02

    Source and screen

    We screen candidates out of our proprietary Special Operations veteran pool while you stay on your own work.

  3. 03

    Post-placement support

    We stay engaged with both the employer and the placed candidate after the start date, for as long as it takes to make the hire sustainable.

What you get

Start with the sector, not the six virtues.

The general case is easy to make and hard to act on: this pool decides under pressure, builds teams that did not start as teams, and improves a process in its first week. All true, and all of it lands differently depending on where you are putting somebody. So the argument is made per sector, with the evidence that belongs to it.

  • Industrial services

    Leading crews nobody can see. A safety culture that survives being unsupervised. Working on ground you do not control.

    Roles placed: Chief Operating Officer (COO), Controller, Senior Project Manager

  • Data centers

    Incident command at two in the morning. Handover discipline. After-action rigor, including after a good night.

    Roles placed: Electrical Engineering Manager, National Field Service Manager

  • Defense technology

    They were the customer. A clearance that is already current. Fluent in the customer's language, and in yours.

    Roles placed: AI Engineer, Backend Developer, Cloud Engineer, Data Architect

  • Manufacturing

    Comfortable being the unwelcome voice. Standard work, on the two-hundredth repetition. Three plants in three states.

    Roles placed: Accounting Controller

Not in one of those four? The standard does not change by industry — what triple vetted means makes the general case, and the glossary translates anything on a résumé you cannot read.

Start a search

Tell us the role. We will come back with whether the person you need is already in the pool, and what an engagement would look like.

We reply to every inquiry. Usually same day.

Next step

Tell us the role. We will tell you who is already ready for it.

An onboarding call with our COO and the lead recruiter, and you will know within the week whether the person you need is already in our pool.