Reimagining Your Resume with Camp Counselor Experience

Spending a summer (or 5) as a camp counselor is a tremendously rich and rewarding experience. You will be making a direct impact on children’s lives, learning new skills, trying new things, and be fully immersed in a quintessential aspect of American culture. Another added bonus to the job? You’ll gain skills and knowledge that will help you be successful in career paths beyond a summer job.

Leadership - Working at camp, you’ll be supervising groups of 7-15 children, engaging in decision-making, tackling behavior management, and implementing safety and risk management on a daily basis. You will model professionalism while contributing to the growth and development of your campers. These are all leadership skills you can use in your future career.

Training and certifications - Many camps provide training for certifications like CPR, first aid, high ropes, climbing, and more.

Critical thinking and problem solving - At camp, you’ll be challenged to think on your feet, be creative, and respond to child health and safety situations every day. These skills will help you be successful in any field.

Collaborative and communication skills - As a counselor you’ll be working with your co-counselors as a team to help build the culture of your camp community and achieve a successful camp season. You’ll learn how to communicate efficiently and effectively with campers, co-counselors, directors, and parents. Teamwork and communication are valuable skills in every job.

Here are our top buzz words that will represent the professional responsibilities and capabilities you’ll have learned and developed as a camp counselor:

Learning skills – critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, problem solving.

Knowledge skills – wilderness/outdoors, activity-specific abilities/certifications, program administration.

Life skills – leadership, initiative, social skills, productivity, adaptability, counseling.