Camp Counselor Resume Guide & Samples

Welcome to our masterclass on how to design your best Camp Counselor resume! Right off the bat, you want to take your Indiana Jones, MacGyver, Marr Poppins type skills and throw them on a page, and we get you! The problem is, so does every other Day & Summer Camp Counselor hopeful. We got you covered, though, because our guideline for a Camp Counselor Resume is packed with info, tips, and examples that will have your resume coming out better than 90% of other resumes.

Camp Counselor Resume Examples

(Free sample downloads are at the bottom of this page)

The Camp Counselor Resume Guide

Resume Sections

  1. Contact information
  2. Profile Summary
  3. History
  4. Achievements
  5. Education
  6. Skill Section
  7. Certification & Licensing
  8. Extras: Languages/Awards/Publications/Volunteering/hobbies
  9. > Professional information


Contact Information

  • First Name and Last Name
  • Email
  • Physical Address
  • LinkedIn Profile / Portfolio Link / Social Media
  • Driver's license

What to Highlight in a Camp Counselor Resume

Now, you may be creating this resume while you complete an undergrad or something like that, and you want to add all your theoretical knowledge. There is a place for that, but recruiters want to see particular details that are vital for determining your fit for their team.

  1. Hiring managers hope to see you’re responsible, you work hard, and you’re keen to grab opportunities as they come. Show them this by including your other casual work experience like being a tutor, volunteering, etc. This proves you can manage your time well.
  2. Because your job will be managing and guiding small and large group activities for children, you want to showcase your interpersonal, organizing, and creative thinking skills in your resume. If it’s your first Day or Summer Counselor role, include as much work experience with children as you can, like babysitting, tutoring, etc.
  3. Do yourself a favor and lay your resume out in a reverse-chronological format. It puts all the most recent and important things first.
  4. Use your white space well, keep headings clean, and your fonts easy to read.
  5. Save your resume as a PDF. This way, it opens up looking the same as you planned it on any laptop/ computer.

When you work with kids, we can’t stress enough how crucial your resume's emergency/ safety/ security features are. You know how parents get with their kids, right? Things like First Aid and CPR are non-negotiable.

Finally, have the following info:

  • Any areas in which you’re happy to work and if you’re ok to travel/ temporarily relocate yourself.
  • Include your special skills/ qualities that may benefit the job you want. An example will be if you’re a qualified birder or adventure guide.
  • Provide written references from prior employees if you can. It adds major cred to your resume.  
  • GPA score.
  • Your computer literacy is important and can look very impressive. Mention if you are competent using Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop, Oracle, Excel, and Visual Studio.

Career Objectives & Examples

The competition out there in this industry is stiff. Therefore, you must find a way to make your resume stand out from the rest, and usually, a career summary would do the trick.

Still, in this line of work, a normal career summary may not be applicable as it’s not really a full-time job (unless you’ve worked at many other day camps, in which case a standard career summary will do just fine).

Your other alternative is a well-crafted career objective. Keep it concise, no waffling allowed. The whole point is to introduce who you are as a person and why you’re the hot stuff. This section must be placed at the top of your resume, just below the contact info.

The intro to your objective must showcase your personality and interest. Then you want to list provide the degree you’re studying and end it off with why you want the job.

You’ll see that the job advert is your secret weapon to saying all the right things. It will have everything you need to craft a killer resume. Read it through, highlight everything they are asking, and make sure it finds its way into your resume. This includes being integrated into your objective. Don’t forget to add any exceptional qualities you may have, like outrageously good people skills/ time management.

Now, just picture this: Dave is the hiring manager. Dave is bored. He’s been through 54 resumes that all look the same when, suddenly, his pulse quickens to the point where you’d think Anya Taylor- Joy just walked into his office. Still, no! it wasn’t an outrageously attractive chess player. It was your objective/ summary!

He’s seen that you’re full of experience and special skills, and you know how to schmooze people! Good on you, mate! You made Dave, a happy Dave, and you got the interview!

To paraphrase a classic line, we’re sure someone said once: it’s 70% what it looks like, 20% how it reads, and 10% what it’s actually about.

Side note: If you want to write a summary, follow the same outline as the objective, just focusing on your work experience.

Example Summaries

Camp Counselor Summary 1

Current Bachelor of English Literature student with a talent for photography. Enthusiastic about improving camp goers’ experience by arranging entry-level photography/ sci-fi literature courses at Camp Wolf.

Day Camp Counselor Summary 2

An energetic political science major would value the opportunity to learn and develop as a Day Camp Counselor at the Day Camp Counselor National business office. Articulate in Italian, Spanish, Russian, and with working knowledge of Mandarin.

Summer Camp Counselor Summary 3

Present Dean’s List student (3.9 GPA) driven to learn the ropes in a community-oriented Summer Camp. Steadfast learner and a hard worker with a keen interest in outdoor survival, specifically focusing on building shelters, fires, and tracking.

Day Camp Counselor Summary 4

A devoted and well-organized camp counselor. Background in Coaching. Mentored seven new camp counselors last summer. Applied 2 new programs and managed activities for groups of 10+ campers. Won local Lifeguard Games 2 times.

Summer Camp Counselor Summary 5

Diligent students looking for a Day Camp Councillorship position will allow for the consideration of career choices in the IT environment. Enthusiastic and hardworking with majors in data and computer science. Worked in the computer center, tutoring undergraduates, and completing advanced data analytics projects applicable to this Day Camp Councillorship position.

Employment

So, there’s a chance you may not have all that much experience, to begin with. Hiring managers understand this, so don’t stress too hard about it. You will need to put something under this section, in any case.

This is one of those rare unicorn moments when you can literally put any job experience you’ve done in your resume. It doesn’t even have to be related to today's counseling. Whether it’s vocational, part-time, or informal, the more you put down, the better your chances will be. It shows you’re hardworking and adaptable.   

We suggest that if you have completed any day camp councillorships in the past, add them to the resume to build up your experience levels. You should be using reverse chronological order, making sure your most recent and relevant stuff is seen first.

Remember to use action words that grab attention when writing this section, such as “maintained,” “led,” “reported,” “scored,” “planned,” and “organized.” This is also a good spot to sprinkle some skills and quantified achievements. You must give achievements, not duties. Remember, the managers looking at your resume literally wrote the job advert.

They know what the duties are about, so don’t make your resume redundant and boring for them. Rather, prove how well you can handle the responsibilities.

We are going to unpack the “I don’t have experience” issue a bit. Here’s a strategy to get around it:

1. Include previous gigs and projects

Have you babysat before? Volunteered for anything? Tutored children? All can be used!  

2. If you don’t have experience, go get some!

Do anything literally if it involves kids, even better! Get creative with it and get your name out there.  

3. Sell your passions

If you think your resume is still looking a little thin, sell your passions as something you may be able to interest the camp goers with. Talents and soft skills always increase your chances of landing that interview, if not the job.

Summer Camp Counselor at Camp Badger

(June 2019 – Current)

Kept a safe setting for the campers to enjoy engaging activities.  

  • Guided a group of 18+ campers ages 10–13 with a positive, fun, and outgoing attitude.
  • Related suspicious/ inappropriate actions or abuse relating to the kids
  • Participated in a friendly game of dodgeball.
  • Taught kids to rock climb.
  • Interacted with summer camp attendees and their parents, creating lasting relationships

Camp Counselor at Big Branch Ranch

(June 2017 – June 2018)

Continually keep campers active and engaged in fun and challenging activities while maintaining a safe environment

  • Followed and executed activities based on pre-designed daily lesson plans
  • Led a group of up to 12 campers ages 9–11 with a fun, positive, and outgoing attitude.
  • Acted as a role model to children attending camp
  • Understood and adhered to Standard Operating Procedures for camp.

Job Descriptions Examples

If you’ve worked as a counselor before, you may have done several duties, some standard and others maybe not.

The hiring manager will want to see a list of what you have done either way to determine how proficient you are. Below are some examples of duties to give you an idea:

A Childcare worker’s duties may include:

  • Communicating, encouraging, and supporting kids, resulting in receiving the male camp counselor of the year award.
  • Collaborating and living life with 11 other camp counselors for three months, assisting each other to excel in what we did, resulting in a better experience for the kids.
  • Handling different sets of 12 kids each week for six weeks along with 3 or 4 camp counselors for maintaining child safety and inspiring kids to have fun.
  • Small group instruction of several outdoor, wilderness survival, and cooking skills.
  • Monitoring scouts' attendance/ performance for merit badge requirements; awarding merit badges.
  • Instructing three sessions per day, with up to 18 participants, over the course of the summer.
  • Providing direction and supervision of programs and activities for more than 20 children daily.
  • Preparing and reading devotionals to children in allocated dorms daily.
  • Preparing and serving meals and snacks in the cafeteria and snack bars.
  • Handling more than $100 in cash at the snack bar and camp gift shop daily.
  • Coordinating daily attendance and activities for 60 second and third-grade campers over an 8-week program.
  • Encouraging positive camper experiences with group bonding activities and by creating interactive activities.
  • Communicating regularly with campers’ parents and answering all related questions.
  • Planning developmentally suitable activities for supervised children ages 7-13.
  • Supervising large-group leisure activities, which include games and team-building skills.
  • Implementing daily schedule.
  • Accountable for every accident/ incident report, which is completed following YMCA policy.
  • Directly communicating with parents regularly regarding their child's behavior relating to the YMCA.
  • Accountable for the health and well-being of children in the allocated group.

Accomplishments

There is a strong urge to copy and paste accomplishments used in one resume for all your resumes. But, ladies and gents, that is a bad idea, as somewhere along the line, the hiring manager will see they don’t match the requirements for the job, and you’ll end up in the “no” pile.

After checking the job advert, you must decide how you’ll stand out from the competition. First, write down your best achievements that made you proud.

Quantifying Your Resume

Quantification is simply adding number values to prove your accomplishments. Not only is this more impressive to read, but it allows the recruiter to evaluate your proficiency in the job setting and therefore determine if you’re the one for the job. If this is an alien concept to you, look at your achievements and see if you can answer the questions “how much/ many/ often?” etc. For example:

  • How many Camp Counsellorship roles have you completed?
  • How long did these Camp Counsellorships last?

What NOT TO DO (leaving out the numbers does diminish the impact of your entire resume):

  • Designed and planned a day trip for a group of campers.
  • Managed activities and oversaw campers.
  • Devised and initiated adventure programs.
  • Accountable for the accurate collection, settlement from the allocated list, and receipt drafting of monthly fees from parents.

From NOT to HOT (check these ones out)

  • Designed and planned a day trip for a group of 12 campers aged 12-15.
  • Managed up to 4 activities per day and oversaw 15 campers per session.
  • Devised and initiated adventure programs, including a 25- stage obstacle course.

Accountable for the accurate collection, settlement from the allocated list, and receipt drafting of monthly fees from parents, typically exceeding $40k.

Education

So, you have a diploma. Or maybe you don’t. Does it matter, in any case? The answer is yes, but only if you can use it to your advantage.

The research done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that your chances of acquiring a part-time/full-time job as a camp counselor are higher the better qualified you are.

You can’t, however, simply chuck your school’s name at the date of graduation and move on.

Because you’re more likely than not someone who doesn’t have much/ any working experience in the field you’re studying for, we suggest you put your education before your experience section in the resume.

Include coursework and projects you’ve done that relate to the field you want to work in when listing your academic qualifications. Additionally, don’t overlook any info the job advert wants from you in this section.

As many youngsters applying for this kind of job has not completed their degree yet, we have shown you below how to list your education, even though it’s not finished yet:

2016- High School Diploma. William H. Palmer High School, Colorado Springs, CO.
GPA: 3.5
Team Leader, Spanish Club Grade 11
Arts Club Member Grade 8-12
Athletics team Member Grade 10-12

No bull, all facts.

You can’t be shy here. Include every extracurricular that can help you stand out.

This also applies to college-level education:

2022- Current. Physical Therapy Student. David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA.

Specialty: Orthopedic Manual Therapy  

Applicable coursework: courses in fine and gross motor skills, balance and coordination, endurance and strength, and sensory and cognitive processing/ integration.

Showing your course work that may apply today, camp counselor show skills that may come in handy on the job.

Examples:

2014-2016 Bachelor of Business Management & Administration, University of Washington, WA.

2013- High School Diploma, Ridgefield High School, Ridgefield, NJ.

2012- Certificate in Microsoft Office, Udemy Online.

Skills

in this section, recruiters place equal emphasis on your technical skills and soft skills. Your technical skills are the skills needed to run the camp and camp activities, and your soft skills are your interpersonal skills.  

Check the job advert for the specific skills the hiring managers are looking for, then integrate those skills into your resume, both in the skills section and sprinkled throughout the rest of the resume.

General SkillsSpecific Skills
Team building and leadershipRock climbing
Activity planning and oversightCooking
Program development and administrationArchery
Communication (incl. negotiating and persuading)Wilderness survival
Conflict managementKnitting
Sports coachingKayaking
CounsellingHorseshoe throwing
Public speakingTie-dying
StorytellingBuilding bonfires

Our rule no.1 is DO NOT copy and paste the skills. This is because some jobs may want different skills from you, so you must check the job advert and tailor your skills section to what they want from you.

The best resumes integrate your skills, duties, and achievements (with quantification) to impress recruiters.

If you can’t quantify some skills, put them in the skills section in a skills matrix like the one above. Don’t give too many, though; keep it concise and include between 5- 10 of your best ones.

Qualifications/Certifications associated with Camp Counselors

Diplomas, Certificates, Associate, Bachelor, Masters, or Doctorate Degrees in an array of fields.

Optional Extras for Camp Councillorship Resumes

To stand out from your competition, an extra section can be quite useful. Add areas like:

  • Certifications
  • Volunteer Work
  • Hobbies, Activities, & Interests
  • Languages

Professional information of Camp Counselors

Sectors: Tourism, Childcare, Education, Hospitality, Recreational
Career Type: Childcare, Au Pair, Counseling, Fitness, Adventure, Sports, Coaching
Person type:  Worker, Helper, Assistant, Facilitator, Coach, Implementer
Education levels: Post-school and upwards
Salary indication: Average of $19.60 per hour (Indeed)
Labor market: 10% Growth from 2019 to 2029 (BLS)
Organizations: Various

Download Day Camp Counselor Resume Templates