DOES THIS DESCRIBE YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW?

You love the outdoors. You love playing sports, doing crafts, being creative. You love being Jewish. And, your good friends say you're great with kids.

If you relate to this, then there's the perfect place waiting for you: summer camp. Over half a million college students will find their way from their campus to camp this summer to fill openings at camps across the United States.

Consider this:

• Live, play, and work in the great outdoors.
• Go on active adventures.
• Experience other parts of the country.
• Make new friends from all over - even from other countries.
• Bank more money than you think - with few expenses.
• Become a child's hero.
• Learn leadership skills.
• Have an impact on the future of Judaism.

Camp jobs offer invaluable skill-building, leadership, training, and enrichment opportunities found nowhere else. Regardless of your major, camp experiences allow you to learn and develop skills that will enhance your job marketability. The benefits go far beyond a paycheck, too. Business executives often note that experience as a camp counselor translates into excellent management and personnel skills.

BENEFITS OF WORKING AT A SUMMER CAMP

All people who work at summer camp do so because they enjoy working with children. However camp offers so many other benefits and valuable experiences that can be used for a wide range of different careers in different industries. The skills learned from working at a camp can be applicable in both the classroom and boardroom.

Many of the situations that you will encounter as a camp counselor teach you a wide range of skills which are appealing to recruiters - even the most mundane of tasks to the most fun tasks which strengthen your leadership, communication and flexibility. Below are a few scenarios you may face and how an employer may view them.

Leadership and mentoring. You will be responsible for a group of campers and will have to schedule their activities and lead them through their time at camp. Also, you will have to show compassion to campers who are homesick, or even to those who are becoming champions in a chosen activity.

An employer… Sees that you are compassionate, confident, have planning skills, and have the ability to lead through good and bad situations.

Good communication. Talking, talking and lots more talking is what you will be doing on camp. Talking to the campers and giving instruction, talking to the parents and reassuring them, talking to your director and discussing problems, talking out issues between campers.

An employer… Sees that you can adapt your tone and choice of words depending on who you are talking to and offer appropriate words.

Flexibility. You will have to cover other peoples duties, you may have to change your plan to deal with a sick camper, or the director may suddenly change your time off because he needs you.

An employer… Sees you have the ability to adapt and change without panicking. Being flexible is always important to managers as this happens on a daily basis and they need employees who will change and work with them.

Ability to have fun. You have to learn to make even the most mundane tasks fun. No camper is going to like or want to clean up, but you have to make it into a camp activity and make it fun. Counselors are the people who make camp fun for campers. Activity leaders are the people who bring activities to life and make them fun for campers.

An employer… Will like that you are someone who does not take everything too seriously and is able to bring some fun into the workplace when appropriate.