Most likely, your team has spent some time thinking intentionally about your website — what it should look like, what pages you should have, what policies should be where, what CTAs to use, and more. Most likely, you’ve thought through this from the perspective of the people who register for camp (or use your space), but how much time have you spent thinking about your website and potential staff applicants (beyond putting the staff application up)?

Thinking about a specific submenu (or even subdomain) for staff takes a bit of work upfront but can pay off big time in the long run. The benefits could be:

• Making your camp look so amazingly cool and staff-focused that you get extra applicants
• Providing information that might deter bad fits (yes, I know you need staff, and yes, I still think we should deter bad fits)
• Hiring people who are more ready to work at your camp because they have a clearer picture of what it’s like

So what do you need on your website for staff?

Typical Daily Schedule — Staff Edition

You may have a typical daily schedule for campers, but staff schedules are different and should be explained differently. Use this area as a place to highlight time off policies so people understand what they’re signing up for.

Mission and Impact

Why do you do what you do? What are the benefits of camp? How many scholarships/scholarship dollars are you giving? How many kids are you serving? These are things that help camps stand out from other jobs. Videos and stories from actual campers and their families can make this even stronger. If you don’t have any videos, that’s okay! Consider linking or embedding a video that talks about the power of camp (like this one from Jason Smith, YMCA Camp Kitaki, or this one from Travis Allison, Go Camp Pro).

Pay and Benefits

Pay transparency is super important, so make sure it’s prominent on your site. If you’re not proud of what you pay, be transparent about what it is and that it’s something you're working on. Highlight benefits like room and board, along with any other benefits or incentives you provide staff (speaking of incentives, here are some great ones from Nelson Strickland).

The Summer Schedule

This one may not get you any extra staff, but it’ll save you time once you’ve hired staff. Have a page that lists all staff dates with who’s required to be where when. Share it with staff and keep sharing it! Include things like staff training, certifications, paperwork due dates, etc.

FAQs

If there are questions you hear a lot from applicants (or staff), find a place for them on the website. If it doesn’t help you get the question less, at least it makes it easier to copy and paste.

General Staff Website Tips

• Think through the user journey and have one page lead to another
• Link to your Instagram and TikTok (especially if you have staff-specific ones)
• Design and optimize for mobile
• Keep pages short
• Use visuals
• Tell a story with each page

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.

Starting as a YMCA overnight camp director just three days after college graduation, Allison Krabill has made a career growing camps. Allison has grown budgets, camper numbers, boards, and more, while creating a more positive camper and staff culture. Allison recently stepped back from full-time camping to focus on her one-year-old son and now serves as the executive director of The Summer Camp Society. She can be contacted at allison@thesummercampsociety.com. 

Photo courtesy of Camp Spearhead in Marietta, South Carolina