Two days ago, we began our marathon sprint to finish the hiring of 1,200 staff to work with Pine Cove this next summer. The overall concept of what we do is the same for any of you hiring 1, 2, 12, or 120. The key is the process.
I’ve written before on the topic of hiring. I’ve talked about the four areas we consider when hiring a full-time staff person. But this is different. The staff I’m talking about more resemble volunteers at churches or other ministries.
The small army of 1,200 staff really make up the soul of our organization. In this post, I laid out the three components that makes us who we are as a ministry. The first part, “Who we hire,” is beginning now. And we better get it right.
Recruiting volunteers is almost an identical process. You stand up in front of people, casting vision of what you are trying to accomplish, sharing the story of what the mission looks like, and eventually explaining what that means for each person.
If you are one that hires staff or recruits volunteers, let me share with you the 3 components I share with our staff each year around this time.
When we have such a monumental task in front of us, we are committing to be:
DILIGENT
Our recruiting began a few months ago. In that time, we have interviewed somewhere around 2,500 college students from all across the country. This means that one of 50 full-time staff have sat down individually with each of these students for about an hour in an effort to get to know them.
We check references. We examine spiritual autobiographies. We consider their spiritual health. We consider what acquired skills each person has. We think about their personality, and if they have the ability to lead people of a certain age group.
Getting to know each applicant for who they are is exhausting. But it is worth it. We owe it to them since they took the time to apply.
During the process we have to keep our minds right. What exactly are we looking for?
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” I SAMUEL 16:7
THOROUGH
It’s easy to hire quickly. Anyone can do that. But to get great staff or to get volunteers who truly want to make a difference, you have to go further.
I remember 10 years ago we put in place a new practice in our process. We began calling a random sampling of the references that were submitted. These people had already filled out a reference for an applicant. We were just calling a select group of people to make sure they were the ones that actually filled it out.
The first call I made of hundreds of these references ended up begin bogus. The very first call. The guy knew of the applicant, but hadn’t actually filled out the reference.
To hire great staff, you have to have thorough processes in place to make sure the great people you are hiring are as great as you think they are.
PRAYERFUL
There is a lot at stake with who we are hiring. We want college students that want to be used by God to transform the lives of people. Although we can pick the staff that look the best to us, there is always more to the story.
Instead of us trying to figure it all out, our process is saturated in prayer. We know this:
Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.
Psalm 127: 1
We pray God would watch over this “city.” We pray for his protection. Our prayer is that he would give us the wisdom needed to make such critical decisions.
Do you have any guiding principles when hiring?
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Great thoughts, Kevin. We can echo many of the same principles.
One of our strongest hiring principles rests in the fact that we can train skills, so the priority is hiring hearts. We seek out and hire those who have hearts for the Gospel, not those who are outwardly impressive or specially trained. In our experience, those who love Christ, are growing in their relationship with God and who love others are best suited to be trained to serve and minister to children within the community of summer camp. It is a huge temptation at many camps to hire based on influence of family (legacy at that camp, and “upward mobility/social influence”), or to hire based on who you think the campers will consider “cool”. As a camp director, I constantly have to repent in these areas.
The interview process is possibly my favorite part of directing a camp. I see it as the beginning of discipleship and staff training for those I know I will hire. If I don’t think I will hire this person based on their lack of spiritual maturity, I will often switch the interview into an opportunity to talk about and specifically share the Gospel and its implications in their life. Some interviews have even transitioned into counseling sessions. If I know I won’t hire them based on any other reason, I use it as an opportunity to encourage them and pave the way for letting them down gracefully.
But I think we all need to be honest enough to say that every interviewer will make mistakes and recommend/hire a dud once in a while – e.g. someone who proves to be lazy and selfish. This happens because humans are all born into being great manipulators. Sometimes you just can’t discern the heart accurately – even with an in depth interview, references, and prayer. Perhaps God lets these folks into camp for a season (before they are quickly fired), for His greater plan and purpose. I need continual reminder that God’s plan is much greater than my own (Elijah’s response on Mt. Horeb and Isaiah 55:6-9 come to mind).
Thanks for your encouragement through this blog/Twitter. Sad I won’t get to see you at CCCA this year. Hope you are well, and that your hiring process is a blessing to you, your staff, and your campers.
– zack
You bring up some really good points here, Zack.
Many business authors have written that there is much to learn from the social sectors. There are some ministries – like various camps – that recognize the value of hiring people first.
Recruiting is a great ministry in and of itself. We had the opportunity to sit down on a college campus with roughly 2,500 college students this year for an hour each. People are surprised how well you get to know someone in such a brief period of time.