Six weeks to summer and not enough coaches
Your summer camps need far more coaches than term time. Some regulars come back each year. The rest are students home from university, sports science graduates, older teenagers who came through your own sessions and want to help. Every spring you mean to start recruiting early. Every year it drifts into May.
Then it all happens at once. You post on social media and ask your coaches to spread the word. Applications arrive as Instagram messages, emails with a CV, texts from a parent whose son wants to help. You arrange chats by phone around your own sessions. Some people you like never reply. Those you hire need to send documents, complete induction and tell you which weeks they can work, and you chase each of them for each of those things. By the first camp week, you are still one coach short on the Tuesday.
Why camp hiring is always late
- Recruitment is a once-a-year job, so there is no routine for it and it slips.
- Applications come through every channel, with different information each time.
- Interviews are arranged one by one, around the owner's coaching.
- Onboarding has several steps, such as documents, induction and a trial shift, and nobody tracks who has done what.
- Availability by week arrives in messages and is copied into the camp rota by hand.
What a late scramble costs
Camps run short of staff, or you turn away bookings because you cannot be sure of coaches. The owner coaches every camp day and does admin every evening. New coaches start without a proper induction because there was no time, which is not how you want your camps to run.
Good applicants also go elsewhere. Students looking for summer work take the first confirmed offer, and a slow reply loses them.
A camp coach pipeline that starts early
- A single application page for camp coaches asks for the things you always need: sports, experience, qualifications, age, weeks available and a short note on why they want the role.
- Returning coaches from last year get a message in early spring asking them to confirm their weeks, before you recruit anyone new.
- Applicants appear on one list, and you shortlist with a tap; shortlisted applicants pick an interview slot from times you offer.
- Hired coaches get an onboarding checklist online, set by you: documents your policies require, induction reading or video, a trial shift at a term session, and their bank details for pay.
- You see who has completed each step, and reminders go to anyone who has not.
- Confirmed weeks feed the camp rota, so you can see coach numbers for each camp day against expected bookings, well before the first camp.
| Stage | Coach does | You see |
|---|---|---|
| Apply | Fills in one form | Applicant on the list |
| Interview | Picks a slot | Interview in your calendar |
| Offer | Accepts online | Coach moves to onboarding |
| Onboarding | Completes each step | Progress per coach |
| Availability | Confirms weeks | Coach numbers per camp day |
What your onboarding must include is set by your own policies; we build the checklist around them and do not advise on what it should contain.
A summer with the staffing sorted in spring
In March, returning coaches confirm their weeks with a tap. You can see the gaps straight away: two weeks in August need three more coaches each. The application page goes live, and applicants arrive on one list. Interviews book themselves into slots you offered between sessions.
By early June, every hired coach has completed onboarding, done a trial shift at a Saturday session and confirmed their weeks. The camp rota shows enough coaches for every day. When a coach drops out in July, you can see who else offered that week and ask them first.
Is camp hiring a yearly panic?
- You start recruiting camp coaches later than you planned.
- Applications arrive through social media and texts.
- New coaches start camp before onboarding is finished.
- Availability is gathered by message and copied into a rota.
- You are still short of coaches in the first camp week.