Usually I do speaking engagements about exercise and nutrition. But over the last few months, I’ve given a few talks about the marketing side of my business, and inevitably, someone from the audience asks how my business runs so smoothly. In other words, why can a client who hires a Fitness Solutions Plus trainer count on the same results, regardless of which trainer they get?

Because of systems. And one of the systems that I have is a very specific one for hiring and training new employees. The ideal is to have a replicable system that operates as smoothly as McDonald’s. Regardless of whether you go to a McDonald’s in Toronto, a McDonald’s in New York, a McDonald’s in Moscow, or a McDonald’s in Timbaktu (do they have McDonald’s there?), you’ll get the exact same hamburger. That’s what I want for my business.

So in this article, you’ll get an all-access, behind-the-scenes look at my hiring process.

Here’s what you’ll learn about in this article:

  • What I look for in a resume and cover letter
  • Mistakes that candidates make before they ever show up for an interview
  • Bad answers to my most common interview questions
  • Where candidates go wrong after the interview

Original source: here.

Resume Gathering

The first step in hiring a new personal trainer to work for my company is gathering resumes and cover letters.

Typically, when I post an ad, I get about 40-50 resumes, and of those, only 12-15 get interviews.

A resume has to stand out for me to even consider that candidate for an interview. What makes a resume stand out? Two things: places of employment, and certifications.

There are certain gyms where if a trainer has worked in the past or currently works, I know they’re good. Two that come to mind are Body + Soul fitness and Mayfair. I notice that trainers who work or have worked at these gyms tend to be more qualified than those who worked for other gyms.

The other things that stand out are certifications. Beyond the basics, I like to see one or more of these certifications:

If I see any of those, I’m impressed. The rest of the stuff I see in resumes is the same ol’ “I work at this gym, and design exercise programs. I motivate people. Blah, blah, blah.” Boring! And more than boring, not impressive.

I would be more impressed if the resume or cover letters listed the books and websites where trainers get their knowledge. For example, one trainer listed these books and resources:

Another trainer listed pubmed.com as one of his areas for professional development. Yet another one listed Eric Cressey’s website. All good, research-based examples.

These are all much better things to put on a trainer’s resume than the same stuff that every other trainer puts on there.

One big mistake that trainers make on their resumes and cover letters is emphasizing how good of an athlete they are or were. Why is that a mistake? After all, aren’t they applying for a personal training job? The mistake isn’t in being an athlete, or in putting it on your resume. That’s fine. But it doesn’t get you any bonus points. At all.

See, most of my company’s clients, and most of the people who buy personal training (over 95% of people) are not the athletic population. They are busy professionals and parents, typically over 40, who just want to lose weight, get toned and have more energy.

The fact that a personal trainer was an amazing baseball player, swimmer or bodybuilder is completely irrelevant to the majority of clients s/he’ll be working with.

Mentioning that a candidate is/was a successful athlete doesn’t hurt their chances of getting the job, but it doesn’t help either. It’s on par with telling me “I like watching ‘Jeopardy’.” Great. But being a Jeopardy fan doesn’t help or hurt your chances of getting the job. Neither does being a superstar athlete.

Mistakes that Candidates Make Before They Ever Show Up for an Interview 

So assuming the trainer passed the resume/cover letter stage, the next step is the interview. A lot of trainers mess this up. Bad.

You’d be surprised how many trainers show up to an interview late. That pretty much disqualifies them automatically. Something incredibly insightful better come out of their mouth during the interview to make up for being late. Coming late to an interview is the equivalent of starting a 100-meter race 20 meters behind the starting line. You won’t win.

I’m strict on punctuality. Even being 1 minute late almost automatically disqualifies a candidate from the job. But before they’re completely disqualified, I want to see what the candidate does.

Does the candidate apologize profusely, and make me believe that they’re really never late, and this was a one-time fluke due to a (legitimate and believable) unforeseen circumstance? If so, that candidate still has a shot.

But if the candidate is very nonchalant about being late, I know that this happens all the time. I’ll still go through with the interview, just to be polite, but really, in my mind, that candidate has already been crossed off the list. If you’re late for the interview, you’ll probably be late to clients. And given that my trainers are an extension of me, my reputation is on the line every time that one of my trainers sees a client. If a trainer shows up late all the time, it reflects badly on me.

One common excuse I hear for being late is “there was traffic.” My response is “oh yeah, I understand.” What I really want to say: “you were surprised that there was traffic during rush hour?”

One trick that I use is scheduling interviews during rush hour in locations that are convenient for me, but may be inconvenient for the candidate. I want to see how the candidate handles both the time and location challenge. Yeah… I’m a jerk 😉

One trainer was new in Toronto (in fact, a new immigrant), living downtown Toronto, and didn’t have a car. I scheduled our first interview on a Sunday at 8:30AM in Markham. He rented a car, and came 15 minutes early. He was hired (that wasn’t the only reason, but it was a big help).

Another trainer I interviewed lived in Oakville. I scheduled the interview for 9AM in Richmond Hill on a Monday. Bad traffic. This candidate didn’t drive, so he took busses to get all the way from Oakville to Richmond Hill, during rush hour, and still managed to come 15 minutes early. I didn’t end up hiring him for other reasons, but boy, was I impressed.

All in all, about 50-60% of the trainers that I interview fail before they even open their mouth. For the simple fact that 50-60% of them come late for the interview.

In personal training interviews, most candidates come either in workout clothes or in casual clothes. That’s fine. It doesn’t help or hurt someone’s chances. But when a candidate dresses in business casual, or more formally, while not necessary, it makes an impression on me, and I remember that person. I know they’re taking the job seriously. I’ve interviewed over 150 trainers over the last 5 years. Only 2 have dressed in business casual (one of those two was hired). Like I said, it’s not necessary, but it is memorable.

Bad Answers to My Most Common Interview Questions

Wow, so far, there’s a ton of ways that personal training candidates can mess up before they ever come to the interview. Now let’s talk about my actual interview process.

Some questions that I ask are more general, and would apply to many industries (like “what are your biggest strengths?”), and other questions are very targeted to personal training (like “for a client with osteoporosis, what ratio of strength training to cardio would you have them doing?”).

So to the question of “what are your biggest strengths?” the most common answers I hear are “I’m a great communicator”, or “I’m great at motivating my clients.” Every personal trainer says that. Bad answer. I won’t remember that candidate 10 minutes after the interview. A good answer would be “my hunger for knowledge. And here’s what I do to acquire new knowledge…” Good communication skills and motivating clients is taken as a given. You can teach someone how to be a good motivator. You can’t teach hunger for knowledge. It’s either there or it’s not. And if it’s not, go on your merry way to the next job opportunity.

Another question I ask is “what do you do for professional development?” There’s a few good answers, and a lot of bad ones.

The good answers are listing specific book titles, website titles, conferences, courses (all the good stuff mentioned in the “Resume gathering” section of this article). Not just saying “I read books and websites.” Giving specific names is much better.

The bad answers are plenty. Saying something like “well, as a personal trainer certified by __________ (name of personal training company), I’m required to obtain X amount of continuing education units to maintain my certification.” What goes through my mind when I hear that: “oh, so you do the bare minimum necessary to not lose your certification. Got it.” I want somebody who goes above and beyond the bare minimum.

Another bad answer: “I’m certified/getting certified in kettlebells/powerlifting/TRX (fill in the blank with your own variation).” The question that I immediately follow up with is “do your clients specifically ask you to train them using kettlebells, TRX, or any other tool?” Most of the time, the answer is “no.” Most of personal training clients don’t know what that stuff is. They just want to lose weight and have more energy. They don’t care what tool their trainer uses to get the job done. In other words, if the trainer is taking a certification in something that isn’t going to get better results, they’re doing it for personal entertainment. That’s fine. Just don’t call it “professional development.” Call it “personal development.” By the way, this is no knock on kettlebells, powerlifting or TRX. I use kettlebells and TRX in the training of my own clients, and I myself am a competitive powerlifter.

One time I was interviewing a trainer, and I asked her “what are you doing for professional development?” She said “I’ll be going to Ohio for visit the Westside Barbell Club” (a very well-known powerlifting club). I asked her “do you train powerlifters?” She said “no.” So she was going to learn about something that wasn’t terribly relevant to her clients. It was again, for her own interest. Nothing wrong with that, but again, don’t call it “professional development.” Call it what it is: personal development.

Then the specific questions come out. Here are some of the questions that I ask:

  • For someone with diabetes, what ratio of strength training to cardio would you have them doing?
  • For someone with diabetes, what ratio of non-starchy vegetables, to protein, to starches should they be eating?
  • For someone with diabetes, what supplements might you recommend?

The questions repeat (with some variations) for the most common conditions that our clients have. Those include osteoporosis, osteoarthritis and hypertension (high blood pressure).

After talking about chronic conditions, we switch over to the orthopedic side of things. I ask questions like:

  • If someone comes to you with lower back pain, you can give the exact same lower back pain program to 10 different people, and 4 will get better, 4 will stay the same, and 2 will get worse. So how do you assess the cause of each person’s individual lower back pain?

If at the sound of “assess”, their eyes light up like a deer in the headlights, I know that they’re about to give me an answer that they’ve thought up on the spot. I know they don’t actually assess their clients. I want the specific assessments they use to just roll off their tongue. That shows competence, and that they’ve taken the time to study that.

But I don’t expect trainers to know all the answers to these questions. What I do expect them to have is a few answers here and there. But to the questions that the trainer doesn’t know the answer, I give them the answer, and explain the physiology/biomechanics behind it. I’m impressed when the trainer asks me whether s/he can take notes on the answers. It shows a hunger for knowledge.

Where Candidates Go Wrong After the Interview 

Even if I like a candidate and I want to hire them right then and there, I still end the interview with “I’m still interviewing other candidates, and if I think that you’re the best fit, I’ll contact you.” I then wait a few days, and contact the candidate.

This is another test. Usually, I get voice mail, and I leave the voice mail. I want to see how quickly candidates call me back. When I have a new personal training client, I like to have a trainer call them in under 6 hours. So I want to see how fast the candidate calls me back after the voice mail. If it takes too long (I give it 12 hours, since they’re not trained yet in my 6-hour rule), their chances are diminishing.

Once they call me back, I tell them that I’d like to work with them, so I’ll email them the contract to look over. This is another test: how long does it take them to look over the contract?

The contract is only 2 pages long, and it has no legalese. It should be easily and quickly read and understood. If a candidate takes longer than 24 hours to get back to me in regards to the contract, that’s a red flag.

After the contract is signed, the new hire must then go through a 1-week self-paced training on my methodology, followed by a 3-hour test.

Yes, the training is self-paced, and online, but I want to see how quickly trainers finish it. If they finish it in under a week, great. If they finish it in a week, that’s fine. If it takes longer than a week, I start to think I’ve made a bad decision hiring that person. Again, I want to hear the reason it took so long. If it sounds like they aren’t taking the job seriously, I’ve definitely made a bad decision (this has happened three times, out of the 18 trainers I’ve hired in the past 5 years). That trainer will not get any clients, because again, my reputation is on the line.

So that’s what I do with trainers who get the job. But what about candidates who were good, but not quite good enough? I see potential, and I think they could be a good fit with a bit more training. So here comes test #137 (I’ve lost count of how many tests are built into my hiring process).

For the high-potential, but not-quite-there yet candidates, I send them an email, saying all the positive things about them, and why I think they’re good, but also gently mention that the knowledge isn’t quite there yet. I then recommend 7 different resources that they should go through, and encourage them to re-apply for the position in 3-6 months, once they’ve done going through it.

If you’re wondering, those resources are:

  1. The Diet Cure by Julia Ross
  2. The New Nutrition: Medicine for the Millennium by Dr. Michael Colgan
  3. Movement: Functional Movement Systems: Screening, Assessment, and Corrective Strategies by Gray Cook
  4. Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath
  5. The Beck Diet Solution by Judith Beck
  6. Fat is Not Your Fault by Dr. Bryan Walsh (this is a DVD series, not a book)
  7. Therapeutic Exercise: Foundations and Techniques

To date, not a single person who I’ve sent those resources to has followed up. I guess I made a good decision not hiring them.

Once I had an interested candidate who went through this process, and again, I sent him those 7 resources to go through. He said he’d go through them. About 4 months later, he sees that I have another opening at my company, and he re-applies. I ask him “how’s it going with those resources I recommended you go through?” His answer: crickets. Tumbleweeds. Silence.

So although he had been working as a personal trainer over those 4 months, he wasn’t any better than he was 4 months ago. There’s a difference between having 4 months of experience, and having 1 month of experience 4 times. If you don’t learn anything over those 4 months, than you’re no better than you were 4 months ago.

In the past, I’ve interviewed trainers who had 20 years’ “experience.” But they were no better than the very first year that they stared training. Again, they didn’t really have 20 years’ of experience. They had 1 year of experience 20 times.

So that’s it for part 1 of this article. In part 2, you can expect to read about:

  • What do I do when friends ask to work for my company
  • More bad answers to common interview questions
  • What we do after they are hired

Click here to read it.