A couple weeks ago, I wrote an in-depth article about my hiring process. It turned into a massive, nearly-3000 word article, and one of the most popular ones I’ve ever written. It covered things like:

  • 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

Building on the popularity of that article, this one will add a few more details, like:

  • 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

After all, I don’t just want any personal trainer working for my company. Since we charge higher rates, we have better trainers (I even wrote an article on what determines how much does a personal trainer cost).

Original source: here.

When Friends Ask to Work for My Company 

Some of my friends who are personal trainers or want to become personal trainers hear about the conditions of working for my company, like:

  • Flexible hours
  • Top pay. Higher than any other personal training company.
  • No need to find their own clients
  • Tons of professional development opportunities

And occasionally, they ask me if they can work for me. As is the theme in all of my articles, I never want to sacrifice the quality of the service my clients get. So I have to carefully and diplomatically balance my friendship with these people, with the professionalism of the company.

So here’s how I do that: I let them know up front that I can’t guarantee the job, but I can guarantee an interview. They find that to be fair. So then comes the interview.

When my friend/candidate is in front of me, but before the interview starts, I always say “by the way, I want to pre-empt all this, and let you know that whether we end up working together or not, nothing is personal.”

This simple sentence lets my friend/candidate know that my friendship with them will not help them get the job.

Then, the actual interview starts. During the interview, I ask all the standard questions (which you can read about in my previous article, by clicking here). If my friend is truly good, they’ll answer the questions properly. If my friend is not quite up to par on my standards, they realize it themselves, without me having to tell them. Their inability to answer the questions will highlight it for them. Usually, at the end of the interview, they have a whole new respect for my methodology, the commitment to professional development, and of course, they understand very clearly why they didn’t get the job. I never hire a trainer based strictly on my friendship with them.

More Bad Answers to Common Interview Questions 

In my previous article, I mentioned a couple of bad answers to questions like “what are your biggest strengths?” and “what do you do for professional development?”

Let’s go over more bad answers to questions

Supplements

One of the things that distinguishes my company from other personal training companies is that we take an integrative approach to fitness: we combine exercise, nutrition and supplementation. Not any one by themselves. So I like candidates to have a good knowledge of supplements. Therefore, I frequently ask “what supplements would you recommend for _______?” You can fill in the blank with diabetes, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis and hypertension.

Trainers who don’t know supplements say protein or fish oil for everything. Here’s what a typical conversation would look like:

Me: “what supplements would you recommend for high blood pressure?”

Them (After a long, thoughtful silence): “protein.”

Me: “Why protein?”

Them: “Because it will help them build muscle.”

Me: “what is the goal of supplementation for high blood pressure?” (the correct answer is very obvious: to reduce the damn blood pressure!)

Them: “umm… for umm… better health and more energy levels. Um.”

By this point, my estimation of their IQ dropped by about 10 points.

The best answer to that question would be “I would recommend magnesium glycinate, at a dosage of 300-1000 mg, because it relaxes the muscles, and nervous system surrounding blood vessels, and therefore, blood vessels expand, and blood pressure drops. I would also recommend arginine, at a dosage of 1-5 grams, because arginine stimulates the production of nitric oxide, which also dilates blood vessels.”

If a person really doesn’t know the answer to the question, then all hope is not lost yet. If they say “I don’t know”, I respect that. An honest “I don’t know” is better than a pie-in-the-sky answer. After they say “I don’t know”, I just tell them the correct answer. At that point, I want to see what they do with that correct answer. If they just say “OK, I see”, that’s not good. If instead, they say “I didn’t know that. May I take out a pen and a piece of paper, and write that down?” that’s a good answer.

Textbook Answers 

As previously mentioned, with our clients, we combine exercise, nutrition and supplementation, so I always ask a few nutrition questions. One of the questions I ask is “which foods would you emphasize for someone with high blood pressure?”

Most of the time, the answer is general, like “vegetables.” A better answer is “foods high in potassium and magnesium.”

I follow up that question with “which foods are high in potassium?” Their answer: bananas. That’s correct. My next question: “what else?” Their answer: “I don’t know.” Fail! I’d like to hear some other high-potassium foods, like potatoes (which, by the way have double the potassium of bananas), avocados, etc.

The next question: “which foods are high in magnesium?” Their answer: “I don’t know.” So telling your hypertensive clients to eat foods high in magnesium is about as good as speaking a foreign language. You just told me (and presumably) your clients a mineral you should be having. But what if I don’t know which foods contain that mineral? That advice isn’t very useful. So trainers need to be able to answer my questions with “real-world” applications, as opposed to theoretical, textbook answers.

What Would You Do With a Client Who Has…? 

So you already know that I ask about chronic conditions (specifically, diabetes, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, and hypertension), and how a trainer might approach a client who has a specific type of chronic condition.

A common response I get is “I don’t know, but if I had a client with that condition, I would research that.”

Wrong answer. The research should have already been done.

Firstly, I don’t even invite inexperienced trainers for an interview. I invite trainers who have a minimum of 2 years of experience (although a few rare exceptions have been made. Out of the over 150 trainers that I’ve interviewed so far, I’ve made 3 exceptions because I was impressed with how much knowledge they’ve acquired in a short period of time).

So in 2 years of experience (and most commonly, 4-10 years of experience), I highly doubt that these trainers did not have a single client with the aforementioned chronic conditions. In fact, the reason that I ask about these 4 conditions in particular is because they’re so common to our clients. So I’m guessing that a trainer with at least 2 years of experience already came across one (and most likely more) client with these chronic conditions. If they didn’t do their research with their first client who had these conditions, they won’t do it now, either.

How Would You Assess…?

Most of our clients don’t come to us completely injury free. Frequently, they’ll come in with a lower back issue, a shoulder issue, or a knee issue. They just know that something’s not quite right, but it’s not bad enough to see a physio or a chiro.

So one of the questions that I ask is “let’s say that a client comes to you with lower back pain. You can give the exact same exercise program to 10 different people, and 4 might get better, 4 might get worse, and 2 will see no change. So how do you assess the cause of each person’s lower back pain?”

The first response I get is a blank look. Deer in the headlights. As if to say “oh… I’ve been giving the exact same lower back pain program to every client.” Or the look might mean “oh, I just ignore the fact that they have lower back pain, and train them as if they don’t.” That’s like an ostrich sticking his head in the sand.

Original source: here.

After that look disappears from their face, the start answering the questions with vague responses. Here’s what a conversation might go like:

Me: Let’s say that a client comes to you with lower back pain. You can give the exact same exercise program to 10 different people, and 4 might get better, 4 might get worse, and 2 will see no change. So how do you assess the cause of each person’s lower back pain?

Them: I would see how they move.

Me: What kinds of movements would you look at?

Them: I’d look at how they squat.

Me: What do you look for in a squat that would tell you about the root cause of their lower back pain?

And the vague answers continue.

A good answer to the question of assessing a client for lower back pain would be “I check the mobility/ranges of motion of the hips, and thoracic spine, as well the endurance of their core musculature. I would want to see a flexion of X degrees, extension of Y degrees, and rotation of Z degrees. For the endurance, I would test their plank, side plank, and back extension. I would want to see them hold a plank for 2 minutes, side plank for 90 seconds, and back extension for 3 minutes.”

The trainers who end up getting hired are the ones who give an answer closer to the second variation.

After They Are Hired 

Thus far, we’ve been testing knowledge. Now, it’s time to test character. As I mentioned in my previous article, a trainer getting hired is conditional on them completing the training on my methodology, and then passing a 3-hour test.

After they pass the interview, I let them know that they will need to read through 150-200 pages worth of information to get up to speed on my methodology, business operations, customer service, etc. They have 1 week to do it.

I want to hear their reaction to when I say that. If their reaction is “is this training paid?” Bad question. It’s not paid training, and they’re lucky they don’t have to pay to get it. For me to acquire this knowledge, it cost over $20,000 on top of my university education, between all the courses I took, the clinical nutrition seminars, the functional anatomy seminars, the books, etc. And I’m giving them that information for free. Furthermore, for trainers who don’t work for me, but they want a crash course on that knowledge, they pay me $3000 for a 1-2 day course.

So the correct reaction to needing to take a week to cover 150-200 pages of information is “wow, I get all this for free? I can’t wait to dig in.” They shouldn’t feel like they are doing me a favour by going through that information. They should feel like I’m doing them a favour by giving them all this information that took me tens of thousands of dollars, and about 10 years to learn.

The Test 

Finally, after 1 week of going through the training, it comes time for the test. The test is long. Very long. About 3 hours.

It’s divided into 3 sections:

Section 1: operations. This covers things like:

  • How to make initial contact with a client
  • How to measure progress
  • Punctuality policies
  • When to take testimonial videos
  • When to take before/after pictures

…and more.

Section 2: methodology. This covers things like:

  • How to interpret a client’s symptoms
  • How to create exercise programs based on different goals, like:
    • Weight loss
    • Muscle gain
    • Improving bone density
    • Others
  • Which foods and supplements to use (and just as importantly, avoid using) for different conditions, like:
    • Diabetes
    • Osteoarthritis
    • Osteoporosis
    • Hypertension (high blood pressure)

…and others.

Section 3: “Out of the Box” Questions, like:

  • What 3 books on exercise or nutrition do you plan to read next?
  • What can you teach other Fitness Solutions Plus personal trainers?
  • What are 3 things we can do to enhance our customer service?
  • What can Fitness Solutions Plus do better than it’s already doing?

…plus more.

And finally, once the test is done, I look at what the answers are like:

  • How’s the spelling/grammar? If it’s not good, I wouldn’t feel comfortable having this kind of person writing emails to clients with bad spelling/grammar. This person represents me, and my image is tarnished as a result of that. A mistake here and there isn’t a big deal. But if there are mistakes all over the place, it can really hurt someone’s chances of getting new clients.

Please re-visit grade 1 English on the differences between “their”, “there” and “they’re.” As well as “your” and “you’re.” Oh, and “ur” is not a word. Don’t write your test like a text message.

  • Are there any answers missing? Sometimes, trainers leave certain answers missing. Not good.

As you can see from both of my hiring articles, a lot of working for my company is common sense, but unfortunately, as the saying goes “common sense is uncommon.” And yes, there’s a lot that goes beyond just common sense, but that’s because I don’t want a common personal training company. I want a personal training company that when it’s mentioned in conversation, it triggers the feeling of luxury. I don’t want someone to think that our trainers are interchangeable with any other personal trainers, and all personal trainers can do an equally good job.

In any profession, there’s the top 10% that are very good. Then, there are 80% who are just OK. And then, there are the bottom 10% who are really bad. I aim for all of my trainers to be in the top 1-2%, and thus far, statistically, that is the case.

Going back to my previous article, as I mentioned:

  • When I post an ad for a personal trainer, I get about 50 resumes
  • Of the 50, I meet 12-15 for an interview
  • Of the 12-15, 1 is hired.

So essentially, 1 out of 50 is hired, which puts that person in the top 2%, and that’s before they go through my training. After they go through the training, and the test, it places them in the top 1%.