Cultivating New Trainers

By Jean Suffin

It seems like everyone is vying to be the next Jillian Michaels or Tony Horton these days. With the rising (we hope) interest in fitness in our country, it follows that there’s an influx of people looking to work as fitness instructors, and there are a plethora of training and certification options for them to obtain. So how does a club weed out the really good ones? As we are about to learn, it’s not about weeding out, but nurturing and growing the good ones. So how can a fitness director determine who is going to be best for the job, the members, and the club?

Shannon Fable—whom you’ve seen on this blog before and in various issues of CBI as a source for invaluable information—is the Group Fitness Director at the Colorado Athletic Club - Boulder, and she brings years of experience running her own consulting business and working with hundreds of group exercise instructors to the table. I asked her about her interview process for hiring trainers and learned that it’s quite intensive. It takes more than your typical résumé solicitation and interview process to find the really good ones.

Here’s what Shannon had to say on the topic:

“Hiring good people starts with finding them, so I put the word out in as many venues as possible—craigslist, Gym Jobs, Healthclubs.com. But word-of-mouth and networking are often the most effective ways of finding people. My business, Sunshine Fitness Resources, maintains a database of instructors all over the world, and I can refer to them for people in the area.

Once I find potential candidates, guess what? I don’t even look at their résumés. It’s easy to put together a seemingly impressive résumé but, surprisingly, sometimes the very best instructors do not have the best résumés, and sometimes the best résumés don’t reflect the best instructors. You never know until you see them move. So I hold open auditions every three months at the club and allow anyone to participate. The initial audition process—3-5 minutes is all you get—is to gauge stage presence, professionalism, and preparedness only.

Certifications and credentials are very important, but they can also be obtained and maintained pretty easily these days. I do look for NCCA-accredited certifications, such as ACE and an IDEA affiliation. However, I’m also looking for real-world experience, professionalism, loyalty, and the desire for ongoing education. I look for good people who are willing to continually evolve.

Once I find my initial picks during the preliminary audition, the interview process takes over and it’s fairly long and intensive. 

The following are the interview steps:

1. Candidate completes paper application.
2. Candidate participates in an “All Call” three-minute audition. During these auditions, I’m looking for the “it” factor; i.e. that special something that makes a class engaging, fun, and effective. Some of that comes naturally and can’t be taught, and we all know it when we see it and participate in one of those classes.
3. If the candidate makes it through the audition stage, I conduct a phone interview during which I review their application, résumé, references, and experience.
4. If they make it through the phone interview, I conduct a live interview. Now that I already know their background, I begin digging deeper to find out how they would handle dealing in our particular environment. I question them regarding ethics, leadership, and teamwork based on previous experiences leading a group. I also give them a real view of what’s to come to see if they’re up for the rest of the challenge!  
5. If they make it through the interview, they’re invited to ‘play with our team.’ That is, they come in for a month to take classes and review classes. They are essentially trying the job on for size: assessing me and if they’d like to work with me, assessing our current team and seeing if they’d fit in, and getting to know the members and the culture of the club to see if it would be a good experience. Basically, we’re interviewing each other. In their review of classes they take, I’m evaluating what kind of team player they would be. Is their review all glowing? Do they recognize places where they can learn and grow or are they competing with my current team? This is probably the most crucial part of my process.
6. When all of this is complete and they have finished their “assignments,” they participate in a formal audition lasting 20 minutes or more. Now, I can really see how they would perform. They’ve had enough time to see the format they wish to teach in action, and to get to know how we do it at our club and adapt. This audition allows me to see if they would be able to jump in and teach on our team.

I’m looking for the right person, with the right talent at the right time, with a willingness to learn. We’re not interested in ego; we want instructors who are there to help people.

Those selected are placed in waiting for a position in the future if there is none available at that time. But the key is, I don’t collect résumés and hold auditions only when a position is available; I hold them on an ongoing basis so I’m sure to have talent available when we need it. I think this is the best way to “catch” the good ones and not miss out on new people coming into the area who might be terrific. I actually create an ongoing pool of people who will be available when there’s an opening to increase my network. 

It works well as a test of commitment to put people through a long interview process with several phases. If they stick around to make it through, chances are they really want to work for you and they’ll put their best foot forward (figuratively speaking). I have been so blessed to build up such a talented network of instructors whom I can call upon at a moment’s notice.

Once someone is hired, there’s very little training that needs to take place because they’ve already experienced, in a way, working in the club. They’re pretty much ready to go. I have them shadow and team-teach prior to taking over formats/classes so they can get familiar with the team and vice versa. It’s a good three- to six-month process—even though I know this is unheard of in the business—before an instructor is out there on their own teaching a class.

I’ve been using this method for years and we keep refining it, but the basic premise has worked extremely well. CAC has some of the best instructors in the Colorado area. Beyond that, we have a true team of instructors versus several individuals who come in, do their thing, and then take their ‘thing’ to another location down the street. When you use a process such as this one, the current instructors have more pride in what they do and respect for the new folks who make it through the process. It cuts down on folks feeling threatened, keeps them from competing with one another, and allows them to focus on the task at hand: making people fit! The process I described takes time, tons of time. But, what it does for you in the future cuts down on wasted time elsewhere.”