Resume Walk

Staff TrainingLeadership & Staff Development

May 31

As seen at Camp Chief Ouray – YMCA of the Rockies

Before training, have a leadership staff member or two compile a list of resume facts from the counselors at the camp. You can easily take them off of job applications or offer a simple online survey to the staff. During staff training (perhaps the first night), have everyone sit in a circle or horseshoe-style formation. Then, the exercise leaders read off the resume facts. If the resume fact applies to a counselor (or counselors), he or she stands up to applause.

At CCO, this exercise started with about 10 lines about camp experience — "Together, we have 65 years of camp counseling experience” — and then all of the returning staff stood. It continued — "We have 14 years of outdoor trip leading experience", ”We have 93 years of experience as CCO campers", etc.

And then the process gets into awesome nitty-gritty facts about staff, such as accomplishments, awards and talents:

"We've won high school cross country championships" (at CCO, about 8 people stood up!!)
“We're national Science Olympiad qualifiers"
"We are peer mentors in our college's engineering program"
"We won the RA of the Year Award"
"We have eaten an entire pizza in a single sitting"

Not only was it a great getting-to-know-everyone exercise for the greater staff, it was the start of a tone of staff appreciation and appreciation of diversity.

Note: this is a great exercise for an emerging leadership team member to facilitate!

When I saw this at CCO, I learned the camp has two staff members who are fluent in German, an editor of a literary journal, a decorated collegiate baseball player, and a staff member who started a surfing program for kids with autism. Wow! The appreciation, inspiration, and awe for all of the counselors as they stood up for their particular shoutouts set a tone of respect. And it was pretty easy to do!

Allison Note: What if we re-used this at the end of camp? We could ask everyone for skills they think they learned this summer and repeat the exercise (with our own list for support) and do it near the end of summer at a staff meeting or in-service. It’d bring things full circle, help support the idea that camp is a real job, and give staff ideas of what they can add to their resume!