How to Hire Lifeguards Before the Summer Season

For aquatics managers, hiring enough qualified lifeguards before the summer season is one of the most important and most stressful tasks of the year. Lifeguards are essential to running a safe facility, certified candidates can be scarce, and the consequences of being understaffed, reduced hours, closed pools, or unsafe coverage, are serious. The good news is that a well-planned, early hiring process makes the difference between scrambling in June and opening fully staffed and confident. This guide walks through how to hire lifeguards before summer, from planning and recruiting to evaluating, interviewing, and onboarding, so your facility is ready for opening day.

Start Early and Plan Your Needs

The single most important principle in lifeguard hiring is to start early. Demand for certified lifeguards spikes every spring, and the best candidates are hired well before summer, so beginning your recruiting months ahead of opening day gives you the widest pool of applicants and time to train them. Before you recruit, determine how many lifeguards you actually need based on your hours of operation, the number of stations you must cover, scheduling and rotation requirements, and the time off your staff will reasonably take. Then add a buffer, because some hires will not work out, some will quit, and some will be unavailable on any given day. Knowing your true staffing number up front lets you recruit toward a clear target rather than guessing.

Where to Recruit Lifeguards

Casting a wide net across the right channels fills your applicant pool faster. Effective sources include:

• Returning staff: re-engaging last season's reliable guards early is the easiest hire you will make, so reach out to them first.

• High schools and colleges: students are a natural fit for seasonal summer work, so connect with schools, athletic departments, and career centers.

• Swim teams and aquatics programs: competitive swimmers and former lessons participants already have the water skills and often the interest.

• Job boards and online listings: post on general and local job sites where job-seekers are searching.

• Your own facility and community: post openings at your pool, on your website and social channels, and around the community, since current patrons and their families are great prospects.

• Referrals: ask current staff to refer friends, which often surfaces reliable candidates who already know the job.

Verify Certifications and Qualifications

Lifeguarding is a safety-critical role, so verifying qualifications is non-negotiable. Candidates generally need a current lifeguard certification from a recognized training organization, along with current CPR/AED and first aid credentials, though specific requirements can vary by jurisdiction and facility type. Always confirm that certifications are valid and not expired, and understand which credentials your facility and local regulations require. Because certification requirements and accepted providers can vary by state and change over time, verify the current requirements that apply to your facility with the relevant authorities and certifying agencies rather than assuming. Some facilities hire strong swimmers who are not yet certified and arrange for them to complete certification before they start, which can widen your pool if you plan for the lead time.

Evaluate Skills and Interview

Beyond paper credentials, a practical evaluation confirms a candidate can actually perform. Many facilities run a tryout that tests swimming ability and rescue skills, such as a timed swim, retrieving a weighted object from the bottom, and demonstrating rescue techniques, to ensure candidates meet the physical demands of the job. Pair this with an interview that assesses the qualities a certification cannot measure: reliability, sound judgment, communication, professionalism, and the maturity to stay alert and act decisively in an emergency. When interviewing and screening, follow applicable employment laws and your organization's HR policies. Together, a skills evaluation and a thoughtful interview help you select guards who are not just certified but genuinely capable and dependable.

Onboard and Train Before Opening Day

Hiring is only half the job; getting new guards ready to work is the other half. Build in time before opening day to onboard hires with facility-specific orientation and training, covering your emergency action plans, facility layout and rules, equipment, communication procedures, and expectations. Pre-season in-service training ensures your team, including returning staff, is sharp and aligned before patrons arrive. Equipping your new guards with proper uniforms and the rescue and first aid equipment they need is part of this readiness. A facility that hires early enough to train thoroughly opens the season with a confident, prepared team rather than a group of strangers learning on the job.

Plan for Turnover and Retention

Smart managers think beyond opening day. Lifeguard roles, especially seasonal ones, see turnover, so plan for it: maintain a small pipeline of backup candidates, keep recruiting channels warm through the season, and, just as importantly, work to retain the guards you have. Fair pay, good scheduling, a positive culture, and respect go a long way toward keeping staff for the whole season and bringing them back next year, which reduces how much you have to hire from scratch each spring. Treating hiring as an ongoing effort rather than a one-time spring scramble keeps your facility staffed and your best guards returning year after year.

Set Yourself Up for a Smooth Season

Hiring lifeguards before summer comes down to planning ahead and running a clear, organized process: know your staffing number with a buffer, recruit early through many channels, verify certifications, evaluate skills and interview for judgment and reliability, onboard and train before opening, and plan for turnover and retention. Start the process months in advance and treat it as a priority, and you will avoid the June scramble that leaves so many facilities short-staffed. A well-staffed, well-trained team is the foundation of a safe, smoothly run aquatics season, and it starts with the hiring decisions you make in the months before the first swimmer arrives.

Stand Out as an Employer

In a competitive hiring market, the facilities that fill their rosters fastest are often those that are simply better places to work, and that reputation is something you can cultivate. Think about what makes your facility attractive to a prospective guard and lead with it: fair and competitive pay, flexible or predictable scheduling that fits a student's summer, a positive and supportive team culture, training and growth opportunities, perks like free facility access, and the genuine appeal of a job that matters. Communicate these advantages clearly in your postings and conversations with candidates, since job-seekers, especially students choosing among seasonal options, are weighing your role against others. A facility known for treating its guards well also benefits from word of mouth and referrals, which become a steady source of candidates over time. Investing in being a good employer is not just the right thing to do; it is one of the most effective long-term recruiting strategies you have, because it draws candidates to you and keeps them coming back season after season rather than forcing you to start from zero each spring.

Treat Onboarding as Part of Hiring

Hiring does not truly end when a candidate accepts an offer; it ends when they are ready to perform safely on your deck. That makes onboarding an integral part of the hiring process rather than a separate afterthought. Plan from the start for the time and structure needed to bring new guards up to speed: facility-specific orientation covering your layout, rules, and procedures; thorough review of your emergency action plans; familiarization with your equipment and communication systems; and pre-season in-service training that aligns new and returning staff alike. Building this onboarding period into your hiring timeline is exactly why starting early matters so much, you need the lead time to train, not just to hire. A guard who is hired but undertrained is not yet an asset, and rushing onboarding undermines the careful hiring you did. By treating onboarding as the final, essential stage of hiring, you ensure the qualified candidates you worked hard to recruit actually arrive at opening day prepared, confident, and ready to keep your patrons safe.

Ultimately, hiring lifeguards before summer is a test of planning and process more than anything else. The managers who open fully staffed are rarely lucky; they are the ones who started early, recruited through many channels toward a clear target with a buffer, verified credentials and capability carefully, evaluated character through a real interview, trained their hires thoroughly, and worked to keep their best guards coming back. None of those steps is complicated on its own, but doing all of them, in order and on time, is what separates a smooth spring from a stressful one. Treat this as a repeatable annual process, refine it each year, and start the clock months ahead of opening day, and you will replace the familiar June scramble with the confidence of a prepared, well-staffed, well-equipped team ready for the season's first swimmer.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you hire lifeguards for the summer?

Start early, determine how many guards you need with a buffer for turnover, write a clear job posting, and recruit through returning staff, schools, swim teams, job boards, and referrals. Verify each candidate's lifeguard and CPR/AED certifications, evaluate swimming and rescue skills through a tryout, interview for reliability and judgment while following applicable employment laws, and onboard hires with training before opening day so you open fully staffed and prepared.

When should I start hiring lifeguards for summer?

Begin several months before opening day. Demand for certified lifeguards spikes every spring and the best candidates are hired early, so starting your recruiting well ahead of summer gives you the widest applicant pool and time to evaluate, hire, and train. Starting late is the most common reason facilities end up short-staffed, so treat lifeguard hiring as an early-spring priority rather than a late-spring scramble.

Where can I find lifeguards to hire?

Effective recruiting channels include returning staff from last season, high schools and colleges, swim teams and aquatics programs, general and local job boards, your own facility and community through postings and social media, and referrals from current staff. Casting a wide net across several of these sources fills your applicant pool faster, and re-engaging reliable returning guards early is usually the easiest and most valuable hire you will make.

What do you need to verify when hiring a lifeguard?

Confirm the candidate holds a current, valid lifeguard certification from a recognized training organization, along with current CPR/AED and first aid credentials, and check that nothing has expired. Understand which credentials your facility and local regulations require, and verify current requirements with the relevant authorities and certifying agencies, since they vary by jurisdiction and change over time. A practical skills evaluation and an interview round out the screening beyond paper credentials.