Why Your Next Best Hire Wore a Costume to Work

If you have read Fresh from Frank before, you know I tend to write about our chanichim, the campers. They are the reason we do all of this, and frankly they are a lot easier to make sound impressive than I am. But this week, I want to write about someone else. A few days ago I came across an old photo, the kind that stops you mid-scroll and makes you forget what you were even looking for.

Four young men in superhero costumes, two Spider Men, a Batman, and a Superman, standing in the old office trailer. I was not in that photo. I didn’t need to be. I was too busy watching these guys and smiling.

Those four were among the most legendary Tzevet (staff) CYJ has seen. I was their Camp Director. I was supposed to be the one doing the mentoring. What actually happened was the opposite, and I’ve been smart enough ever since to keep my mouth shut and just learn. They are not alone. Over 28 years, I have been lucky enough to work alongside a long line of incredible staff who shaped this camp, shaped me, and went on to shape the world around them. Every summer brings new ones. Every summer I’m reminded why I believe so deeply in what this place does to a young person.

That’s why I want to make an argument I’ve been making informally for years, to anyone who will listen:

If you are hiring, hire a camp person!

Here’s what nobody tells you about a summer camp staff member: they have been through management training unlike any that most corporate professionals will ever experience. A camp division head, often a college junior or senior, is responsible for leading a team of counselors who are not there for the paycheck. Let me say that again: they are not there for the money. They are there because they love camp, they love kids, and they believe in something bigger than themselves. You cannot manage that group with fear or financial incentive. You have to inspire them. You have to motivate them. You have to make them want to follow you even at 7am when it’s already 90 degrees and the AC is broken in the chadar ochel (dining room.)

Now imagine a corporation rotating out its entire senior leadership team every three years. Chaos, right? That’s camp. Every summer we rebuild, and somehow the mission stays intact. The people who thrive in that environment don’t just survive change. They run toward it.

What does a camp staff member actually learn? They learn to build real relationships, not LinkedIn connections, but actually talking and laughing over shared meals and late nights, IRL. They learn to stand in front of a group and speak with confidence, because there is no hiding behind a PowerPoint when 40 twelve-year-olds are staring at you waiting to be entertained. They learn to fill time creatively and any counselor who has pivoted an outdoor activity mid-thunderstorm can handle a collapsed project timeline without blinking. They learn to make the mundane meaningful: dish duty becomes a song, a walk to the waterfront becomes an adventure. And they learn to lead by example, because at camp there is nowhere to hide. Your campers see everything. Your co-counselors see everything. You either show up as the person you want them to be, or you don’t.

And then there’s the layer that is uniquely ours at CYJ. Our staff don’t just work at a summer camp. They live inside a Jewish environment, steeped in tradition, community, and Zionism, for seven weeks straight. Not as background noise, but as the point. They go to sleep thinking about Israel and wake up figuring out how to make a twelve-year-old care about Israel, too. The ones who do it well become the next generation of leaders in our Jewish community: rabbis, educators, federation professionals, day school directors. I’ve watched them grow from the kid in the superhero costume to the person everyone in the room turns to.

And one more thing: our staff spend a summer largely disconnected from their phones. In a world drowning in screens, that’s not a sacrifice; it’s a gift. They come back knowing how to be present. How to look someone in the eye. How to actually be in the room.

So if you’re a Jewish professional, a board member, a business owner looking for someone hungry, resilient, relational, and deeply connected to community, I think you only need to care about one answer in the job interview:

Did you ever work at camp? If the answer is yes, stop looking!