Posts Tagged ‘summer employment’

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5 Tips for First Time Counselors

Sunday, May 26th, 2013

You’ve accepted the position and completed the paperwork.  It’s official!  You’re about to spend your first summer as a camp counselor.  Naturally, a lot of people experience a few nerves in the days leading up to camp.  After all, even when you’re a grown adult, leaving behind your family and friends to spend the summer in a strange place is a big deal, especially if you’ve never been away from home for an extended period of time before.  If you didn’t attend summer camp as a child, working at summer camp holds even more mystique because you’re not sure what to expect.  If first time counselor nerves are haunting you, don’t be so quick to call up and accept that unpaid internship filing paperwork in a stuffy office all summer and, for goodness sake, don’t accept that job at the hot dog stand in the local park.  Instead, follow these tips to kick your summer into gear now:

1.)    Relax!  You are NOT the only first time staff member coming to camp.  If you know no oneelse going to camp or have never been to camp, that understandably may be a pretty difficult concept to wrap your head around right now.  But trust us!  When you get to camp, you will be in good company.  If you’re feeling a little bit lonely when you first arrive, don’t panic and automatically assume you’ve made a mistake.  The majority of people who tend to be drawn to work at camp typically have laid back, easy going and open personalities with an extraverted bend toward making new friends.   Chances are that after your camp’s staff orientation period, you’ll have several new friends for life and wonder why you ever even doubted coming to camp.

2.)    Like your camp’s Facebook page and staff Facebook page if it has one.  Social media has arrived and most summer campsare completely aware that the easiest and most effective way to communicate with their camp staff is through means such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  By liking your camp’s pages, you can make friends before camp, pick up a lot of useful tips, and even possibly connect with a rideshare if you’re looking for a way to get to camp.  Most summer camps also now feature regular blogs.  It’s a good idea to pop onto the camp webpage every now and then in the weeks leading up to camp to see what new blogs have been posted.  Camps tend to post some blogs, such as this one, for which staff is the intended audience during the late spring and early summer.

3.)    Don’t over or under pack.  Packing lists are created by camp professionals who’ve spent enough summers at camp to know what you need to be comfortable for the summer.  So read over the staff packing list, if your camp supplies one, when determining what to pack as well as what not to pack.  Veteran staff members are also usually more than happy to field questions on staff Facebook pages, which makes them a good resource if you’re unsure about some items.

4.)    Arrive with the right mindset; being a camp counselor really is the hardest job you’ll ever love.  Camps tell prospective staff members this during the interview process…and they mean it.  You are about to spend the summer working harder than you’ve ever worked in your life, and you will love most moments of it.  There will also be moments during which you will question how in the world you ended up working at a summer camp and why you thought it was a good idea.  Two things are essential to moving forward when these moments happen, and they’re actually most effective if you prepare yourself with them before you even get to camp.  First, arrive with the right attitude.  Yes, you’re there to work.  You’re there to work hard.  You’re also going to have a lot of fun creating amazing moments for and with your campers.  Second,  know what helps you alleviate stress or frustration and come prepared to engage in it should the need arise.

5.)    Be in the moment.  Yes, we spend our lives being told how important it is to plan.  But at camp, it’s very important to bein the moment and be present with the campers.  It’s how you’ll best appreciate the camp counselor experience as well.  Summer camp lasts only a few weeks each summer, and things tend to move very quickly.  On the first day, you’ll be looking ahead at a whole summer and thinking the end seems like a long way off.  But on the last day of camp you will wonder where it went.   Don’t find yourself with regrets on that day by realizing that you didn’t take advantage of every moment.

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Starlight Internships

Saturday, April 27th, 2013

Almost every week we hear from a former staff member, ” I really want to come back to camp, but I think I have to get an internship this summer”. All this talk about internships got us thinking about our leadership staff, their backgrounds in and out of camp, and how much we really do offer at Starlight in many fields and majors our counselors are pursuing. You don’t have to just be in education or recreation to benefit from a summer at Starlight. We reached out to our key staff community that includes teachers, nurses, coaches, accountants, business managers, human resources, recruiters, facility managers, operation, transport and program directors and many more and they were as excited as we are about sharing their knowledge with you. A program was born!


Beginning this summer, Starlight will offer internship opportunities in education, public relations, marketing, finance, human resources, food services, sports management, hospitality and more. As an Intern, you will be balancing your regular daily job responsibilities as a counselor first but will have an opportunity to work with an intern advisor to help complete your internship responsibilities. Starlight has the greatest leadership team with unmatched experience in all these fields and along with Allison Miller, our internship director, you will create a program to help achieve your goals for this internship. After the summer you will walk away with a tangible project and more importantly, real world, hands on, career building experience. This is a great way to have the best of both worlds. To learn more about how to network within our camp family and build your resume at Starlight, email info@campstarlight.com

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Camp Starlight on Your Resume

Tuesday, February 12th, 2013

In a society where college students are told they surely must land that coveted internship to ever secure a job after they graduate, it posts a challenge for summer camps around the country to retain experienced staff after their college years are over. The misconception of adding “Summer Camp Counselor” to a resume as not a serious prior job experience is unfortunate and something that has to change! At Starlight we are working to foster an environment where our staff can be proud to list being a “Camp Starlight Staff” on their resume with some significant and meaningful skills to back it up.

Some of the aspects of the job are obvious. As a member of Camp Starlight Staff, counselors are going to learn responsibility. Staff are going to learn (quickly) how to multi-task. Most importantly, developing strong leadership skills and the know-how and patience to work with all different people from very different backgrounds is an invaluable experience found in a summer spent at Starlight. Counselors  hone organizational skills and learn how to work in a demanding and fast-paced environment. Working in such a close -knit community staff members realize what it is like to work as a team, be a good co-worker and a great role model. The thing our team takes from a summer at camp that far surpasses closing day is the experience of self examination and discovery. During the summer at Starlight, we facilitate this and help our staff find the things they enjoy and where he or she excels.  This helps build confidence which will last a lifetime.

Anyone considering the exciting prospect of joining us for a summer at Camp Starlight can feel certain that the summer will come with an abundance of experiences that will prove useful for years to come in whatever future career path he or she should take.  It’s important to remember  being in a bunk and responsible for 10 children requires patience, energy, empathy and selflessness. All of these skills can be further discussed in an interview, and it becomes clear that skills learned at Camp Starlight will transfer well into almost any industry or job. Everyday spent at camp provides opportunity and valuable connections for success in the future.

Networking, for example, is a natural thing that occurs at camp. Not only do staff have a team of people to learn from, but just like in recent blogs discussing Starlighters around the world, camp is a culture that is shared by many. Many employers understand the role of the counselor and will appreciate the hard work, passion and dedication it takes to work at a summer camp.  Talking about experiences during a future interview process,  potential employers are bound to be impressed with the excitement Starlight counselors have about a job. With all of the areas we have in camp ranging from programming and athletics, to the tours and the special events, our experienced key staff serve as mentors for development of our counselors life and career goals.  Camp Starlight provides the ability to try a wide range of things and achieve both personal and professional goals all the while having a fantastic time working with great kids and making lifetime friends!

Alyson Lee

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Who is Watching Your Children? A Look at Camp Staff and Leadership

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

If you submit prospective babysitters through background and reference checks just for a date night with your spouse or significant other, then you probably have an extreme interest in just who will be taking care of your children at summer camp.  Thanks in part to movies and television, many parents have images of young, barely out of high school teenagers filling counselor roles.  However, the truth is that camps conduct searches for months to locate and fill leadership and key staff roles with mature, knowledgeable professionals, many of whom work with children in some capacity year round.

Even though camp is still six months away, chances are that your child’s summer camp (or prospective summer camp) has already kicked its recruiting season into high gear.  To find counselors, many camps traverse college campuses across the country searching for college students and recent grads who are pursuing careers in education, social work, youth athletics, or other fields related to working with children.  In order to avoid staff members that are too immature—or mature—the target demographic for counselors is typically between 20-25, although some camps will vary from this in certain scenarios or for special needs.  A successful camp counselor works 24/7 and must be mature enough to make split second decisions that concern the welfare and well -being of children.  Although counselor staffs tend to have relatively high turnover rates from year to year because college students complete college and move on to full time jobs that they cannot leave for an entire summer, leadership staff tends to return more regularly.

Camp leadership is often comprised of seasoned teachers and coaches who have been involved with summer camp in some capacity for several years or even decades.  Some of them grew up as campers and worked their way into leadership positions beginning as counselor assistants or counselors.  Others began as counselors and loved the experience so much that they have returned from year to year.  Still others are hired directly into their leadership roles after extensive searches by camps to find the best candidate for the role.  However their camp experience began, one thing that all camp leaders have in common is that they not only have extensive experience working with children, but thorough knowledge of the intricacies and behind the scenes goings on of summer camp.

Aside from leadership staff, other mature individuals are employed to staff health and dining facilities as well as offices.  In fact, parents are sometimes surprised to learn that so many mature, experienced professionals spend their summers at sleepaway camp.  But, for many, the experience, as it is for the children, is beyond compare.  Those who return each year will tell you that they wouldn’t consider spending their summers anyplace else.  They love what they do, they love their campers, and they love their camps!  How many traditional jobs can boast such high morale and collective years of experience?

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It’s a Small World after All

Saturday, April 28th, 2012

As we go about our everyday, it is easy to think that the world is made up of just our friends, family and the people we see on a regular basis. We associate and spend time with people from similar places, cultures and backgrounds and can sometimes even forget there is a big world outside our own.  Whether you are a camper or a staff member, going to camp makes you see the world differently! Camp gives you the benefit of coming into contact with people from different schools, communities, countries and cultures from around the world. We make it a point of hiring counselors from across the globe for this reason.

After traveling around the world to meet our counselors, we know that everyone loves to see that some of our soccer coaches are from England and it’s great to be out of the lake with our mates from Australia! They bring so much to the camp experience. Not only are they fun, and we love hearing their lovely accents (we love trying to repeat them too!) They share stories about growing up in places we may have never been. They also teach us new activities, create new interests and help us see the world differently. And what happens is that even though many of our international staff live far away, and talk funny, we realize we are not all that different. These relationships help us to grow and force us all to learn about getting along with others and not just the people we see as like ourselves. Camp teaches you that there is so much more out there, and campers and staff walk away with a greater understanding of themselves and others.

–Alyson

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Who Works at Summer Camp?

Saturday, February 25th, 2012

Spring is just around the corner and summer will be here before you know it, which makes now the time to start thinking about how you’re going to spend your summer.  If you’re a college student, you could toil away as a server or cook at the local pizza joint or operate rides or peddle souvenirs at the local amusement or sports park.  Interning in a local office may even be an option you’re considering.  But if you want summer employment that promises a summer full of fun and adventure while also helping you develop valuable lifelong skills that employers view favorably, consider working at Camp Starlight.  Just because your college days are behind you doesn’t mean that there isn’t a role at summer camp for you too, particularly if you are a teacher or high school or college athletics coach looking for a fun way to earn some extra money over the summer.  In fact, the ages and backgrounds of the people who make up the typical summer camp staff are about as diverse as summer camps themselves.

If you don’t think being a counselor is really your thing or your pretty sure you’ve aged out of that option, don’t sweat it.  There are a multitude of positions besides counselors that we must fill each summer.  For starters, our office requires personnel to run it.  If answering the phone and administrative tasks are more to your liking, perhaps working in the Camp Starlight office might be the ideal option for you.  Additionally, we need people to help with daily scheduling as well as planning and executing special activities during the evenings and on special days.

If you like the idea of spending time with children and are an athlete or hobbyist who would rather focus on your passion, we hire specialists to teach skills in specific sports and hobbies to campers.  If your passion is photography or videography, as the camp photographer responsible for capturing the fun every day, your role is one of the most integral at camp. In fact, if you can think of an activity, there is probably a staffing need for it at camp, and sometimes some of the hardest positions to fill are ones most people just don’t think of when they think of summer camp, such as creative writing, cooking, robotix, eco science, animation, media, or magic.

Most hospitality positions such as kitchen, maintenance, and housekeeping are usually filled with international applicants.  If you are an international student who would love to earn some money by working in the U.S. before or after traveling, one of these summer camp roles may be the perfect option for you…as well as a lot of fun and a chance to make a lot of new friends from around the world!

If you’re a more mature individual with more education and/or work history, camps also have a need to fill key roles that require more foundational knowledge and experience.  Aside from counselors, Camp Starlight also employs division leaders, people who lead a specific age group and supervise all of the counselors within that group.  Although we usually fill all or most division leader roles with individuals who have several years of successful camp experience because these types of roles require a more intricate knowledge of summer camp, occasionally we will search outside of camp, typically for teachers or other professionals who work with children.  In addition to division leaders, we also hire program or activity heads.  These are typically college coaches and current or former professionals in their area of expertise, such as soccer, baseball, basketball, gymnastics, etc.  However, since almost all activities require people to run them, those with interest and expertise in hobbies or arts related programs can often find a summer home at camp as well in areas such as arts and crafts, dance, theater, etc. Those who manage offices, act as campus administrators, or arrange transportation are typically individuals with some type of related work experience.  Most camps also employ camp moms or parent liaisons during the summer.  These are individuals, often mothers themselves, who monitor the well being of younger campers to insure they are eating properly, staying well groomed, and having a fantastic summer.

So if you’re thinking of trying something new this summer, fill out an employment application to see if Camp Starlight might be the right summer home for you!

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Visit Us at One of our 2012 Starlight Staff Recruiting Events!

Sunday, February 5th, 2012

It’s officially 2012, and that means the countdown to camp is even closer! As we look ahead to the summer, we at Camp Starlight realize that there is still a lot to do before our campers arrive! Although we have a great number of staff returning for another Starlight summer, one of the great parts about working all year round is the fact that we get to meet almost all the new staff we hire before camp! How do we do this? We travel to THEM! This winter we have over 10 trips planned to meet and interview potential counselors for this season! Around the world in 90 days! As for the next 3 months, we are on the road to Toronto Canada, Manchester England, Puebla Mexico as well as Kansas State and University of Kansas, from there we jet off to camp fairs at Indiana University (Alyson’s alma mater) and Purdue (Patrick’s alma mater and where we first met him!). After that we head to the Pacific Northwest to go to Oregon State University, University of Oregon and University of Washington in Seattle. Also on the docket is a spring trip to University of Texas and a stop-over in Ohio if we aren’t filled by then!

We love the idea of meeting our staff in a face to face interview, and when we speak to them and they get excited you can just feel the energy. For so many, you know automatically it’s going to be a great fit! The veteran staff love when we stop by their campus and are always there to lend help and plan mini reunions. We have also found that we have been able to get a few more staff members to commit to another summer after a stop at their college (and a personal reminder of camp life!). It’s a great way to see old friends, reconnect with counselors from previous summers and meet some of our new staff. We find this works so well for us, and we can feel the buzz already in those places as they get ready for our arrival!

Alyson Lee

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Are You One in a Million?

Saturday, January 14th, 2012

According to the American Camp Association (ACA), nearly 1.2 million people take on the adventure of working at camp each summer.  They come from all over the world and all walks of life.  Some of them are former campers while others have never experienced summer camp at all.  Their educations are as diverse as their backgrounds and many of them choose summer camp over a traditional internship because of the unique, well-rounded work experience it provides.   Whether the winter weather already has you thinking about what you’ll be doing this summer or you’re just browsing summer employment opportunities, it’s worth asking yourself, “Am I  one in a million?” :

  • Summer camp staff come from all over the world.  Increasingly, as summer camps recognize their unique position to promote a global community in a fun, relaxed environment, they are recruiting staff from near and far.   The ACA reports that within the last decade “there has been an increase in the use of international staff to expose campers to different cultures.”  If you live outside of the U.S. and you’ve been wanting to travel to the USA, summer camp is a great way to earn some cash while getting to intimately experience life here.  If you’re an American and a trip abroad just isn’t quite in the budget, you need go no further than a residential summer camp to make new friends from all over the world—and pad your bank account while doing it!
    If you think that being a former camper is a pre-requisite to being a great camp counselor, think again.  Many camp staff members who return to camp year after year never even set foot on a summer camp campus prior to working at one.  Like many of their colleagues, that one step was all it took.  They were won over and continue to return each season.
    Summer camp employment isn’t just for education majors and coaches.  Increasingly, those with majors in the social sciences, sciences, math, engineering, and even medicine and nursing are finding a summer home at camp as an alternative to the traditional internship.  Summer camp provides many unique experiences that one can gain nowhere else, such as a 24/7 commitment and the opportunity to simultaneously work with children and adults in a close-knit family type community.  Summer camp also develops a diverse range of core skills valued by employers today.  As a camp staff member, one must make split second decisions, be an efficient negotiator, use creativity to sell ideas and concepts, resolve conflict, solve problems, be an effective leader, know how to prioritize, be extremely flexible, accept change, and be awesome when it comes to multi-tasking.  If it sounds like a big order, it is.  But almost all who take on the challenge report that it’s also one of the most fun and rewarding experiences upon which they’ve ever embarked.
    If you are an education major or a coach, have you thought of summer camp as an opportunity to build experience working with children ages 7-15?  Working at summer camp develops many of the same skills that are often used in the classroom or on the field.  Many educational institutions view summer camp experience as some of the  most valuable on a potential educator’s resume.
  • How many traditional internships pay you AND provide you with room and board?  In addition to a stipend for the summer, almost all residential summer camp positions offer room and board as part of their employment packages.  What this means to you is that, potentially, everything you earn throughout the summer goes straight into your pocket…or your bank account, as the case may be.  Even if you allow yourself a bit to splurge on sightseeing around the local area (many of America’s finest summer camps are located in some of the most beautiful parts of the country), it’s still possible to take home a substantial amount of cash at the end of the summer.  This is particularly appealing when one considers how much rent and food can add up to over a summer.

If you’re looking for the summer job to beat all summer jobs, summer camp may definitely be your cup of tea.  At summer camp, everyday will be a new adventure that takes you both indoors and out from sunrise to sunset.  There are no cubicles, no computers (aside from computers available for staff to use on their free time), and no time clocks.  And…there are beautiful surroundings, a camp full of campers who depend on you, a slew of challenges you never knew you’d face (and enjoy), and a circle of lifetime friends waiting to meet you.  If you’re one in a million, what are you waiting for?  If you are a college or university student, check your college’s upcoming career fair lineups.  Many summer camps travel to universities to recruit this time of year.  It may be possible to meet the first member of your future camp family in person.  If your college days are behind you or there are no summer camps scheduled to visit your university, you can apply directly through Camp Starlight’s web page.

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