Camp Staffing Success: Recruitment & Hiring Tips That Work

November 12, 2025

Camp directors wear many hats — but “professional juggler” probably wasn’t one of them.

Between tracking applicants, conducting interviews, and ensuring every counselor is a perfect fit, hiring can feel like a circus. And when the process drags, it’s easy to lose sight of what makes camp magic happen: the people. 

Camp directors want to focus on building unforgettable camp experiences. To do that, they need the right people to back them up.

What if your camp hiring process worked so well that you were able to hire high-quality staff in record time? What if your hiring team enjoyed the process too? 

Your camp is only as strong as the team behind it — and in today’s competitive hiring landscape, finding passionate, qualified staff can be tricky.

Camp hiring isn’t like traditional staff recruitment. You’re filling dozens (or hundreds) of short-term positions within a relatively short timeframe, often with a mix of new and returning staff — all while also prepping to host campers! 

Common Pain Points When Hiring for Camp

Here are the pieces of the camp hiring process that teams often struggle with. Do they sound familiar?

❌ Limited visibility for your open positions, even with multiple listings and platforms. 

❌ Disorganized summer camp applications scattered across third party talent services, LinkedIn, emails, and spreadsheets. 

❌ Slow interview scheduling and poor follow-up that can cause ideal candidates to move on before you come to a decision. 

❌ Incomplete or inconsistent onboarding processes that delay final hiring steps and impact your new team member’s readiness to work at camp. 

❌ Poor internal communication between HR, directors, and department leads. 

Looking for a short summary of our staffing tools? 
We have that! Check out the 7-step hiring process and get a peek at some of the interfaces you’ll be working with. (About a 2-minute read.)

Finding the Right Process, Tools, & Mindset

Even with a strong hiring team, traditional hiring processes simply don’t scale well for a bunch of short-term hires.

When applications surge and deadlines loom, those small inefficiencies compound into big headaches for your team. That’s why many camps are turning to digital staffing solutions.

There are at least half a dozen camp-centered staffing services out there to help match summer camps with potential job candidates. While third-party listing sites for jobs can be great exposure, you'll see some of the same camps in forums posting job openings right up to the last minute.

Why? The candidates that third-party sites send aren't always the best fit. Many of them end up applying for several listings on the same site all at once. That puts your camp in direct competition with others, in a race to the finish line (hired). 

The bottom  line? Outsourcing your candidate search is not always the best solution.

We recommend spending the time to nail down the right in-house hiring process for your camp.

Using a combination of iCampPro’s smart staffing tools and your team’s HR software, you can keep your applications and hiring process completely in-house. 

The Solution: Build a Better Camp Hiring Process!

Hiring the right staff shouldn’t feel like a full-time juggling act. With iCampPro, you can streamline every step, from the first steps of the application to the final job offer with one easy-to-manage system.  Our camp staffing tools help you: 

✅ Search and review applicants faster.  Quickly filter candidates and access complete profiles in just a few clicks. 

✅Track & document interviews seamlessly. Keep your interview process consistent, timely, and fair. 

✅Collaborate efficiently.  Use built-in review tools and set rules for how many internal approvals are needed before making an offer. 

✅Stay on track with your goals. Set automatic countdowns and alerts for each hiring stage so no great candidate slips away. 

When all of this comes together, you get more than an organized workflow; you create an experience that builds trust and excitement from your very first interaction with every applicant. 

Ready to simplify your next hiring season?

See how iCampPro helps camps streamline recruiting from application to onboarding. We’d love a chance to show and tell. 

6 Tips to Improve Your Camp Staffing Process

Want to learn more about how to improve your camp hiring process? Let's go over six ways to do it and how iCampPro is designed to help you achieve those goals! 

Tip 1: Attract the Right Candidates, Strategically & Efficiently

The challenge:

Many camps post a few generic “Camp Counselor Wanted” ads and hope for the best. Without a plan, you end up juggling scattered applications, unclear needs, and missed opportunities. 

How to address it:

• Build detailed Seasonal Staff Rosters so you always know how many hires you need per role and where you stand. 
• Create customized online applications that collect exactly the info your team needs like skills, experience, preferences, and more. 
• Rehire efficiently by carrying forward last season’s staff into the new year’s workflow and application process. 
• Empower applicants with a self-service Staff Portal where they can check their application status. 
• Automate reference requests with built-in email triggers and online forms. 
• Share your application seamlessly to college job boards, outdoor organizations, and referral networks.  

✚ PRO TIP:   Turn your application link into a QR code for in-person hiring events! 

Why it matters:

With iCampPro, you can design, promote, and manage your hiring process in one system, saving time and ensuring you attract the right people for your camp.  

Tip 2: Help Camp Job Applicants Cross the Finish Line

The challenge:

Mid-application drop-offs is one of the biggest leaks in the camp hiring pipeline. Forms that are too long, confusing, or not mobile-friendly can cause great candidates to give up partway through. 

How to address it:

• Ask for contact info early on in the application process. 
• Progress-saving behind a secure login lets applicants pause and resume applications anytime. 
• Mobile-first design ensures your form looks great and works smoothly on any device the applicant is browsing from. 
• Smart question types make applications faster and more engaging. 
• Applicant stage tracking helps your team see where candidates drop off and reach out before they disappear. 

Why it matters:

A smoother, more flexible experience keeps candidates engaged — and gets more qualified staff across the finish line.

Tip 3: Screen & Filter Job Applicants with Precision

The challenge:

After applications pour in, deciding who to process and review first can be overwhelming.  You need easy ways to compare and identify quality applicants before spending time interviewing and running costly background checks. 

How to address it:

• Use key data points from applications for comparison (e.g. schools, certifications, preferences).
• Easily review references with forms to automatically collect recommendations. 
• Track time in status and prioritize decisions for candidates who’ve waited longest. 
• Design weighting or scoring metrics to use when team members do interview. 
  

Why it matters:

With iCampPro’s customizable applicant profiles, progressive workflow, and ranking system — your hiring team can spot top talent quickly — without juggling spreadsheets and guesswork. When your team processes applicants using a fast system, there's less time for ideal applicants to second guess, apply elsewhere, or ghost you.

Tip 4: Follow-Up Fast, Interview Consistently, & Evaluate Fairly

The challenge:

Slow follow-up times, inconsistent interviews, and interviewer bias can all cost you great candidates while allowing lesser qualified candidates to slip through.

How to address it:

• Set a clear follow-up window for response once an application is submitted.
• Assign a team of trained interviewers who know your camp's values, staffing needs, and dealbreakers to set up interviews and weed out candidates quickly.
• Create a standard interview guide or template so every candidate is asked similar questions and assessed on the same criteria.
• Have multiple staff members review and approve applicants before making an offer. 
• Keep everything in one place —  applicant history, interview details, and ratings.

Why it matters:

You have a short window to build the right team for an unforgettable camp season. If you don’t follow up with strong candidates quickly, they’ll accept offers elsewhere. And if you’re not going to hire someone, closing the loop and removing them from your  pipeline saves time for your team and the applicant.

iCampPro makes it easy to see when a candidate has completed their application and is ready to move to the interview stage. If you decide not to move forward, you can mark the applicant as Cancelled so they’re clearly unavailable for hire and no longer cluttering your pipeline.

When you’re ready to interview:

• Record the scheduled interview details — date, time, and interviewer — to move the candidate forward in the process.
• Use iCampPro’s interview forms to organize questions and capture notes in real time.
• Score each applicant at the end of the interview. Then use the score, interview notes, and the application data in your team’s final review.
• Require one or more additional reviewers on each applicant to promote fairness and reduce bias.

These tools reduce scheduling confusion, support consistent and fair hiring practices, and keep every detail about each applicant in one centralized system—so your team can move faster and hire smarter.

Tip 5: Recruit Flawlessly - Offer, Onboard, & Convert Candidates with Ease

The challenge:

Even after making offers, many camps lose time chasing paperwork or struggling with unstructured onboarding.

How to address it:

• Tailor steps to identify when a candidate is “ready for hire”. (e.g. completed application, interview, and has been reviewed by team members)
• Craft digital job offers with detailed pay and event info to allow candidates to quickly review, accept, or reject online. 
• Set up triggers to send info to external HR software when a candidate’s status changes to hired (either manually or by accepting a digital offer). 
  

Why it matters:

While iCampPro is not a full-scale HR software. But it turns the critical first stages of camp hiring and onboarding chaos into a clear, guided workflow for your team.

If at any point in the later stages of hiring, a candidate backs out or gets disqualified – we have tools to handle that too.

As you move more people into the hired status,  your staff roster in iCampPro stays up to date and shows exactly which roles still need to be filled  at a glance!

Tip 6: Analyze, Iterate, & Build Your Own Hiring Best Practices

Every post should guide your audience to a next step.

For the best results, make the purpose of your post obvious and easy to act on.

The challenge:

Without a well-honed process and the right data, every hiring season is like starting from scratch. Most camps don’t track what worked or why they might have lost great candidates. 

How to address it:

• Reuse or modify past hiring forms (like applications, references, and interviews) to save time and optimize your process. 
• Keep historical records of applicants and hiring data across seasons. 
• Measure the time it takes to fill your staff roster and which hiring stages need improvement.
  

Why it matters:

iCampPro isn’t just a software to centralize this experience. It gives your team a “learning engine” to optimize your process — including tools to track your progress while helping your camp grow smarter, faster, and stronger with each staffing season. 

 Want 9 quick, practical tips to boost your hiring process? 

If you’re looking for quick tips for improving your hiring process that your team can action today without switching software, we've got those too!

Why iCampPro Beats Other Camp Staffing Systems

To summarize why iCampPro is better than a simple third-party listing service and other camp management software at helping you hire the right team, fast...

✅️  End-to-end continuity – It's not just an applicant tracking system or a job application form builder and collector; your entire hiring workflow is connected in one meaningful, repeatable process. 

✅️  Candidate-centric UX – We recognize that a poor job application experiences cause camps to lose ideal job candidates, so we built our tools to give them a better one. 

✅️  Benchmarking Tools – We provide optimizable hiring experiences with custom forms, rosters, and goals so your team can start benchmarking performance across hiring seasons and find the process that works best for your team. 

✅️  At-a-Glance Progress Tracking – With a centralized platform and staff roster, see exactly which positions still need to be filled at a glance and track progress toward hiring goals. 

Start Building a Smart Camp Recruitment System Now

Why wait for next season when you can start your blueprint to better hiring practices now? iCampPro is your secret to planning a hiring season that’s less stressful and more strategic about selecting the right candidates for your camp.

Next Step👉 Explore iCampPro’s Staff Hiring Tools 

See how we organized hiring your camp staff in one of two ways! 

What Else Does iCampPro's Camp Management Software Do?

We pride ourselves on taking the time to understand the needs of modern camp professionals by meeting with camps across the country and doing real assessments of what works, what doesn’t, and what they’re looking for.  As a result, we do a lot!

Here are some of our most popular features: 

• Camper Health Management & Medicine Tracking 
• User-Friendly Customer Registration Portal 
• Group-Friendly Event Management 
• Dashboards, Built-In Reports, & Custom Report Builder 
• Point & Click Custom Form Builder with Version Tracking 

Looking for tips to improve your camp staff retention? 

In a previous blog post, we covered 6 reasons you’re struggling to retain staff and offered tips for what you can do about it.  Click here to learn more. 

Other Common Camp Hiring FAQ's

Q: How can camps find quality staff faster?
A: Use in-house hiring systems like iCampPro's staffing tools to automate applications and track candidates efficiently.

Q: What are the best places to find good seasonal camp staff?
A: Attend hiring events at nearby colleges, set up a booth at local job fairs or community gatherings, and ask your existing network through emails and social media to help refer strong candidates.

Q: What’s the best way to avoid losing great candidates that apply?

A: Proactively watch for new candidates and respond promptly to move them through each stage of your hiring process.

Q: How can I get a hesitant candidate to commit to working at camp?

A: Seasonal summer employment opportunities at camp can be excellent opportunities for teachers and students to fill in the gaps. But others may not see it that way. When talking to a hesitant candidate, emphasize themes of teamwork and feedback from past staff members. Let them know they'll be supported and talk about training. Translate what they'll learn and how they'll work into skills that will help with future employment.