Every spring, camp directors revisit the age-old question: is on-campus recruiting truly worth the travel budget, time away from home, and inconsistent outcomes? As digital hiring platforms surge, many leadership teams simply opt out, quietly stepping away from campus visits altogether.

I haven’t. For me, campus recruiting isn’t about filling the roster — it’s about finding our next star performer. These hires make up a small percent of our summer team, yet they consistently become standout staff members. In post-season evaluations, campus recruits routinely garner rave reviews from their supervisors. Most importantly, they show up: they commit, participate in pre-summer training, invest in our mission, and take real pride in choosing camp over more conventional summer paths.

The secret isn’t handing out flyers at a generic career fair; it’s moving from transactional hiring to intentional academic partnership:

• Broaden your departmental footprint: Move beyond education majors. Some of our strongest talent pipelines come from faculty relationships in Public Health, Physical Education, Outdoor Recreation, and Business Administration. When professors realize camp offers credit-worthy training in risk management, logistics, and personnel supervision, their personal recommendations carry immense weight with students.
• Celebrate camp as a flexible, career-accelerating internship: Position your willingness to adapt the experience as an open invitation to help students fulfill degree-required internship hours while pursuing their specific professional goals. Our interns thrive when they’re empowered to create events, craft curriculum, and step confidently into leadership among their peers.
• Collaborate with peer directors for high-impact campus touchpoints: Leave the isolated recruiting table behind and team up with other camp professionals. Our sweet spot is joining forces to present panel discussions in university classrooms, meeting directly with professors to ask how best to engage their students, and visiting campus student organizations. Showing up as a united front elevates our profession and shows faculty that youth development is a serious place to gain real-world skills — and make a difference.

This relationship-first approach pays off when you least expect it. Late last spring, a professor reached out about a student who hadn't secured an internship. Because trust was already established, we moved quickly to bring the student on board and created a meaningful internship experience. That student went on to become one of our highest-rated camp counselors.

Campus recruiting isn't dead — transactional recruiting is. It won't fill every slot on your staff chart, but it will connect you with leaders who leave a lasting imprint on your program.

This blog was written on behalf of Project Real Job whose purpose is to support camps in their efforts to recruit, hire, and retain staff.

Dave Schiff is co-owner and director of Camp Manitou in Oakland, Maine, where he’s spent the last 30+ summers. He is the co-chair of the ACA Staff Recruitment and Retention Committee and chairs the Maine Summer Camps ad hoc Staffing Committee. He lives with his family in New York City. He can be reached at [email protected].

Photo courtesy of Camp Kippewa in Monmouth, Maine.