Cast The Right Net

Secrets to landing the best staffing candidates

By Lynn Roy

I recently attended a summer job fair at Louisiana State University (LSU) with hopes of finding my “aha moment” to explain what makes college-aged kids want to work at camp. It was no surprise that I came away with more than one hypothesis.

Photo: © Can Stock Photo / monkeybusiness

Hypothesis 1: Camp interviews are lengthy and exhausting for both the camp and the seeker, so when you get a great candidate on the line, work hard to have that person commit to your camp.

Upon registering for the event, I was assigned to my table and a woman at the next table greeted me with an enthusiastic hello, and “You’re the reason I found my first camp job!” Awesome. I didn’t know her and didn’t recognize her face, but I recognized her camp (Chestnut Lake Camp) and her first name (Masey). Seven years ago, she landed her first camp job at Chestnut Lake Camp and has since worked her way from drama director through program assistant and director to a now full-time job as the assistant director. She had one interview seven years ago and fell in love with her camp.

My own experience was similar. I interviewed at Camp Walt Whitman in 1997; it was a long interview, and I knew from the conversation that the camp would be a great fit for me. I didn’t want to go to any other camp after that call. My husband had the same experience with his interview in 1989. Apparently, over time, we really haven't shortened the interview process, have we! I love that, in a world of trends, connecting through a conversation and giving value to that connection has not gone out of style.

Hypothesis 2: Camp is definitely a resume builder; it’s our job to teach staff members how to convert their skills at camp to skills on their resume.

Back at the college fair, Avery, a LSU student and counselor at Chestnut Lake Camp, came to hang out for a bit and talk to prospective staff members. He admitted that the reason he was interested in working at a camp was his interest in athletics, and he thought coaching at a camp would give him valuable experience. He began the previous summer as a volleyball coach and filled a position on the residential side of camp. Avery, of course, fell in love with camp and camp fell in love with him.

“At the end of every summer, I sit down with staff members to brainstorm words to build their resume. With the experience of camp behind them, these are no longer just words to write, but stories behind each word. ”

At the end of every summer, I sit down with staff members to brainstorm words to build their resume. With the experience of camp behind them, these are no longer just words to write, but stories behind each word. To see the lightbulb on the staff members’ faces as they process what the words “multi-task” or “solution-oriented” mean to them—after a summer of becoming experts in these tasks—they understand these skills on a whole new level. There are some great hand-outs on resume-building words to use as a springboard, but I like the process of having staff members figure them out on their own.

Photo: © Can Stock Photo / Maridav

Hypothesis 3: When you reach out to college-aged students, do so somewhere between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., or after 7 p.m. if you actually want a response!

At the end of the job fair, I had some time to kill before an afternoon meeting. I headed to the Student Union and set up shop. I worked a while and observed what was going on around me. On a campus of 25,000 undergraduates, it virtually cleared out around 3:30 p.m. It was like universal naptime. The few students who were left in the Student Union were either eating or watching a movie. Nobody seemed to have any energy left to work, check email, and definitely not to think about a summer job. For my own website, I like to peek at Google Analytics and see when folks are most using the site to look for a job. No surprise that it is surely not between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.

Hypothesis 4: Pay attention to the days when you reach out to staff, as you are more likely to get a response on certain days of the week.

As the day continued, I began reviewing the trends of when people do apply to camp. I like to track this stuff; it’s fun and useful to have 20 years of data to compare. Those who are looking to hire staff 18 or older for a residential camp should reach out between Sunday afternoon and Wednesday evening. Those who are seeking staff members for a camp who are younger than 18 should reach out anytime between Friday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. Weekends are a busy time for job searching for high school kids, but not as much for the college-aged crowd. We know that this generation of students is not likely to respond the first time we reach out to them. There’s just way too much information coming at them daily, and they simply cannot reply as quickly as they have in the past. Camps need to reach out in multiple formats (phone, text, social media, email) because college-aged kids don’t even check their emails every day anymore. It may feel like more work, but the rewards are, of course, worth it.

Hypothesis 5: Camp makes sense to us who are in it every day. For the rest of the world, it’s an education.

I headed to my meeting to discuss some changes that needed to be made on my website. I pointed out to my 20-something web programmer that we had to include “co-ed camps,” “brother/sister camps,” “female camps,” and “male camps,” as these are standard terms in the business. My programmer literally stopped me mid-sentence. “Lynn,” he said, “we can’t figure out here for the life of us what a brother/sister camp is. Do you really need to have a sibling at camp if you want to go?” I laughed. I know I’m in the same boat as many reading this; people just have no idea what we do for the rest of the year. We tell them, but they still don’t seem to get it.

So let’s keep educating. Let’s keep spreading the word of working at camp so we can continue to send kids summer after summer.

Lynn Roy met her husband, Bunkie, at Camp Walt Whitman, and the two continued their careers as camp directors at Camp Mah-Kee-Nac. She now returns to Camp Walt Whitman in the summers, where her three daughters are campers. Reach her at staff@campstaff.com.