Resume Hacks for Personal Trainers

Do you want to get hired at Life Time Fitness, Equinox, Crunch, YMCA, LA Fitness, or One Life? How to Become A Successful Personal Trainer Vol. 2 has an entire chapter (Ch. 5) dedicated to helping you develop your resume, interview and get hired. 

Want a recruiter to say “yes” before they finish their coffee? We walk through a practical blueprint for landing interviews at Equinox, Lifetime, and other top gyms—starting with a one-page resume that signals credibility in seconds. You’ll hear how to write a sharp objective, place certifications and CPR/AED where managers expect them, and use the right keywords so your resume survives ATS filters without pretending to hold credentials you don’t have.

We dig into the real difference-makers: quantifying outcomes and showing breadth. Instead of vague claims, learn how to present 300+ coaching hours, retention rates, monthly sales figures, and program results that match tiered coaching models. We explain how to reference NSCA needs analysis, ACSM risk stratification, and FMS screening as proficiencies, not certifications, to demonstrate a wider toolkit. You’ll also hear a before-and-after resume example, complete with measurable achievements, client variety, and clear timelines that prove reliability.

Then we shift from paper to performance. We share how to prep for the recruiter screen, avoid filler words, and research each company’s tiers and assessments so your answers land. If your dream gym feels out of reach, we offer a playbook: get interview reps elsewhere, build confidence, leverage seminars for warm referrals, and use mentorship to keep momentum steady. Rejections happen; smart trainers translate “not yet” into a stronger reapply. Ready to turn a cold resume into a warm introduction and a scheduled interview?

Subscribe, share with a trainer friend, and leave a review to help more coaches get hired at elite gyms.

Want to become a SUCCESSFUL personal trainer? SUF-CPT is the FASTEST growing personal training certification in the world!

Want to ask us a question? Email info@showupfitness.com with the subject line PODCAST QUESTION to get your question answered live on the show!

Website: https://www.showupfitness.com/
Become a Successful Personal Trainer Book Vol. 2 (Amazon): https://a.co/d/1aoRnqA
NASM / ACE / ISSA study guide: https://www.showupfitness.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Mission
• 0:37 Goal: Get Hired At Any Gym
• 1:56 One-Page Resume Rules
• 3:18 Objective And Certifications That Signal
• 4:43 Beating Filters With Smart Keywords
• 6:20 Experience When You Have None
• 8:07 Upgrading A Real Resume Example
• 10:16 Quantify Wins And Show Breadth
• 12:10 References And Brand Protection
• 14:09 Nail The Interview Basics
• 16:18 Variables You Can’t Control
• 18:05 Build Confidence And Reapply

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry one qualified trainer at a time with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitness.com. Also make sure to check out my book, How to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Haddy all, welcome back to the Show Up Fitness Podcast. 30 days of podcasting. We are past Christmas on the final leg, a few more before 2026. And what I'm going to do today is help you get hired at any gym that you want to go by optimizing your resume. In my book, How to Become a Successful Personal Trainer, Volume 2, there's an entire chapter, chapter 5, How to Get Hired at Any Gym, helping you with your resume, interview, and pointers from top trainers. When I say top gyms, I'm referencing Lifetime in Equinox. Hands down, the best gyms that you could work at with a clear path to clearing over$100,000. If you want to work at a YMCA, Crunch, LA Fitness, this resume prep will be just as effective for those gyms as well. I'm going to break down someone's resume who was sent to us recently. And if you would like us to take a look, you can email info at showupfitness.com and I'll give you some pointers and then also correct anything I think that you could be optimized within there. So the first things first is you want the resume to be one page. I don't care if you've been a trainer for 15 years, unless the spot that you're applying for is like an executive role or a C-suite type of position, one page is all you need. I've been a trainer for 20 years, and if I wanted to apply to a gym, I would have my resume one page. So start there, condense everything. Start with your name, make sure your email is appropriate. For example, my mom's name is Sharon. Shitco at gmail.com would not be appropriate because they would see the shit and they would not like that, even though her first initial is Sharon and then Hitchco. So be mindful. You don't want to put jock jammer28, whatever the hell we're putting today. Make it professional. Create one from Gmail, Yahoo, whatever. Have a phone number on there as well as your address. Your name at the very top. Make sure that they can see it, read it, look at mistakes. There's nothing worse than having little spelling mistakes or comma or period. Use chat GPT. Make sure there's not dashes throughout the whole entire thing because chat loves to do that. The first line under your name should be your objective. So this trainer right here says SUF and NASAM certified personal trainer with a BS in kinesiology, emphasizing on exercise science. Passionate about helping clients achieve their goals through training, motivation, and education. Seeking to join a gym where I can grow professionally and inspire others to live healthier lives. I like that. Make sure that you have intent, your passion, just a couple sentences. It doesn't need to be longer than that. And then go into your certifications and education. I would put that as one line, so certifications and then backslash education. If you don't have a degree, you don't need to put your high school diploma on there. You could just add your certifications. So SUF CPT November, NASAM certified in October, and then CPR AED. You need to have your CPR AED. You can now do that online, so just get that checked off. The more certifications that you have, the better. But don't let that deter you from applying if you only have one certification. In this case, right now, we have SUF CPT and NASM. So if you go to a gym and they prefer NASAM, you're gonna get in the door. If you were to send your certification or resume to Show Up Fitness and you just have NASAM, I'm gonna email you back and say you need your SUF CPT. So it depends on where you want to go. The more the better, and here's why. If you apply to a lifetime and the director or general manager has a background in kinesiology, they're NSCA and they have their CSCS, they can type into the resume search and they could do a filter where they eliminate certain certifications. How do I know? Because that's what I did when I was a manager. I put in there NASA, delete the resume. So if you didn't have another certification in there, you're gonna get deleted. That's not fair. Life isn't fair. And as a trainer of 20 plus years and a manager, I know the textbook certifications are not gonna set you up for success. And typically the trainers are not that great. You read a book, that's it. So as a hiring manager, if I have a background in kinesiology, I'm gonna prioritize NSCA and ACSM. It doesn't mean you have to go get those certifications. I'm gonna teach you, you can add that into your resume by saying something like, I've reviewed the NSCA needs analysis by implementing blah, blah, blah. I reviewed the ACSM risk stratifications for cornear artery disease. You're not saying you have that certification, but you're putting it into your resume to show you have a diverse background. But just think of it from the hiring manager's perspective. You're gonna have a lot of resumes coming in from the big three. So if you've interviewed 100 trainers and they're doing the same thing, overactive this, underactive that, I'm gonna do the overhead squat assessment. You want some variety. You may want someone with a strength background who's more clinical with the ACSM. So by making your resume more diverse, you're setting yourself up to get into the interview. When I say get into is because the first process is just reviewing your resume seven, 10 seconds, past the eye test. A hiring manager or a recruiter, they're getting hundreds of resumes per month. And it can be annoying going through every single one of those. So they're just gonna scan it. Okay, they're certified, they have their CPR, okay, objective, nice. Let's get into their experience now. If you don't have any experience, you need to put experience on there. Hiring managers want to see experience, and that's the unfortunate thing with the industry. Experience doesn't mean quality, but if you had to choose someone with a bunch of certifications or someone who had experience, they're going to take the person with more experience. So that's why you could have a great foundation like the SUF CPT. And I'm gonna go to bat for you, and you are more qualified than the majority of trainers that are out there. With no experience, you could go and get hired at a gym at Equinoxer Lifetime because of the relationships we've set up with certain managers. Now, if that manager at the gym that you're applying to has never heard of SUF CPT, they're going to prioritize experience. So for that hypothetical manager, if you have an independent contractor as one of the uh Dashes under experience, you can talk about people who you've trained. You're not lying by saying, I've been training for the last seven years. You are just fabricating, as I say, the people who you've worked with. Now, when you go through our in-person, you're actually gaining hands-on experience. But if you're doing it remotely or online, think about the last time you went to the gym or you trained a family member or a friend. Don't put that on your resume saying I trained a family member or a friend. You have 150 hours of training experience helping clients lose weight, get stronger, get out of pain, move better. Dietary suggestions. You can use blanket statements that is actual experience. Here we have experience SUF CPT online. He was an intern, and then the two dots that he has is two-month online internship focused on anatomy, programming, eight-core movement patterns. That's okay, but we got to make this better because I want to know what this internship is about. The manager has never heard of SUF CPT. You gotta explain that. And then he has Fit Republic, and he was a custodian, maintained cleanliness of gym facilities and restrooms. That's fine. How long are you there for? July of 2024 to current, there's no specific dates. Show that you can hold a job if it's less than a year. Typically, we don't want to put it on there. So you don't need to have every single job that you've worked at. Highlight your successes. Maybe you worked in a restaurant or you worked in sales, relate that into fitness. I managed a team of 15 people where we helped cross-penetrate. So you that word is sexy to managers, cross-penetrate. I know it sounds sexual, but it just means that you are able to sell product A and then also have product B that you are giving to someone as well. So you're at a spa center and you're selling spas, but you're also selling memberships. That's stuff that shows the skills that are associated with becoming a trainer and being a qualified trainer. So we're gonna take this resume right here and we're just gonna level it up. And I'm gonna show you if you again, if you want to check out one of these, you can email info at showupfince.com. But here's Anthony, he just got hired at Lifetime in Southern California. He has all the nice stuff up there, resume looks nice and tidy, professional summary, certified personal trainer with a strong background in sales, customer service, teaching, and coaching. My goal is to become the highest-tiered coach through strong communication skills, a talent for motivating others, and a drive to keep learning. I like that. It shows that he has ambition. As a former youth basketball coach and longtime athlete, I've seen firsthand how proper training and consistent support can change someone's confidence. I've also completed a hands-on internship with Show Up Fitness to gain real-world experience in programming, client assessments, and anatomy. This is awesome, Anthony. That's why you got hired. Education, SUF CPT, January 2024. He has his NASAM CPT. He went to Cal Lutheran, he has a degree. And also he has his CPR and AED from the National CPR Foundation. Education checks off. Now let's take a look at the professional experience. Independent contractor, Dash, personal trainer, January 2024 to present. Over 300 hours of one-on-one training sessions, ranging from goals in weight loss, strength, and pain management. Number two, maintain clients through prospecting online and building long-term relationships. Number three, continued education through certifications and in-person internships. Wow, that is impressive. 300 hours of experience. He's worked with a variation of clientele, and he's continued his education. I love that first part. The second thing under professional experience, SUF CPT, January 2024 to present. Attended daily live in-person classes discussing programming, movement competency, anatomy, and people skills. Over 200 hours of continued fitness education, classes on anatomy, nutritional science, and foundational movement patterns. Number three, proficient in assessing all clients using various assessment protocols such as NASA's overhead squat analysis, NSCA Needs Analysis, and ACSM CAD stratification, CAD is coronary artery disease, and also FMS functional movement systems. So again, you're hitting all angles with NASAM, ACSM, NSCA, as well as FMS. If you're going to Equinox, you need to know the FMS. We have YouTube. There's numerous free PDFs that you can download looking at what the FMS is. You're not saying you have that certification or that you took that course. You're saying that you are proficient in it. You are proficient in implementing the NSCA needs analysis. You need to know what that is because if someone were to ask you, what is a needs analysis? It's looking at movement, planes of motion, joint actions, bioenergetics, common injuries. So you need to understand, you're not just lying on your resume. I'm gonna put NASA on there just because it's popular. No, that's fraudulent because you don't have that certification. But you can say that you reviewed the overhead squat assessment. That's the difference. He was an inbound sales representative from June 2024 to current, handled 30 inbound leads daily, guiding clients towards premium service plans using strong product knowledge and a client-first approach. Achieved$10,000 in monthly product sales for five consecutive months through relationship building and personalized strategies. That's exactly what you have to do as a personal trainer. I like those numbers. Put specific numbers in there. Now he said 10,000 plus. I would like to see maybe$11,500. What exactly was it? Again, not that big of a deal, but the more specific you are, it just means that you're not copying and pasting. At the very end, he has languages. He's fully fluent in English and Spanish. That is awesome. And then professional references. You could put available upon request. He put Megan Gilbert, head instructor at SUFCPT, Chris Hitchco, founder of SUFCPT. Do not put someone on there if they're not going to give you a good reference. I've had managers at Equinox in a lifetime. Reach out to me. Chris, are you giving the green light for this person? No, I am not because I don't even know who they are. They read my book and you think I'm going to give you a stamp of approval? No. If you have our certification, you've gone through the process, you've watched the videos, you've been in person or online or at a weekend seminar, and you passed our test. That shows that you are competent. You understand anatomy, you understand movement, the programming within the CCA, and you passed a programming test example in real life. That's either via Zoom or it's going to be in person. That's someone I'm going to give the stamp of approval for. If I helped you pass NASA, do not put me on your resume. I'm not going to give you the green light because my brand is at stake here. If you go to a gym and you start doing some stability of all fucking squats, I'm not going to be very happy. That is me who's saying that, oh, they're okay to start training. No. If you've gone through our program and if you were proficient and you are punctual, I will give you the stamp of approval. But again, just because you show up doesn't mean I'm going to give you the green light all the time. I want the best to get hired, and you are a representation of our brand. If you talk the part, if you look the part, if you know the part, I'm going to give it to you. But I've had students that have come through and they were not consistently coming to class. They would miss days. They were not on time. And they were sloppy in their presentation and their vocabulary. So if you go to an Equinox or Lifetime and I say that's a great trainer right there, and you don't have the tenets of help nick, as I thoroughly discuss in my book, I'm not going to give you a reference point there. That resume right there is going to get you a call with a recruiter at Equinox or Lifetime. The rest is on you. We're the only certification in the world that guarantees you an interview at these elite gyms. But that first interview, now that I'm handing the reins over to you, you need to be on time. You need to ask great questions. Do research about the company. What is the FMS? What are the tiers that Equinox has? What's the history of lifetime? Where was it founded? Minnesota. Equinox, New York. You need to know the specifics. Do your research. Don't do this half-assed. So you have that first call. Tell me your strengths. Talk to me about your weaknesses. Don't use a bunch of word fillers. Um, uh uh, like uh, you know, bro, whatever. Be professional. Practice in the mirror, do it over and over and over again. If you tell yourself you're not great at interviews, that's strike one. You have to know you're great at interviews. Look at yourself in the mirror, point, flex. I'm gonna rock this interview. Smile, have fun with it. If you have one gym that you really want to work at, don't go there first. Go to a couple other ones. Get some reps in. Go to Starbucks and interview, have them ask you random questions so you can think on the fly. So you're gaining some reps with the interview process. It's tough to put all your eggs in one basket because there's so many variables on why they may not take you. Maybe they need a girl. They're not gonna put out their we need a female. So you're a dude and you come in, you put all your eggs in one basket, they're just gonna send you an email back saying, we found another candidate. They cannot tell you why. That's HR legal stuff. They're just gonna say we found someone else. They may need someone who's older, maybe they need someone who's younger. There's so much that goes into it. The variables within the manager, their biases for what they like and they don't like. I've met managers at Equinox in Lifetime who will say, I want three to five years of experience andor an SUF CPT. Managers who've never heard of SUF CPT, they will say, I want five years minimum experience. So if you go to one of these gyms and they just need one trainer and they don't know about us, they're not gonna give you that chance. They're gonna give someone who has more experience, and that's just the way it is. Life isn't all sunshine and rainbows. That is your story that you have to define. I've worked with trainers and we've set them up with interviews at Lifetime in Equinox, and they didn't get the call back. You can't let that crush you. What can you do today to move the needle? Maybe it's gonna be independent. Maybe you need to go to a crunch or an LA fitness and just gain more confidence. And then you reapply six months later, a year later. We've had so many trainers get hired at Lifetime in Equinox. You can make$100,000 there easily by implementing everything that I talk about in my book. You can't just show up when you're supposed to show up. You gotta go above and beyond. Are you challenging yourself? What does your continuing education look like? Have you been to a seminar in the last three months? If not, get to Atlanta and Phoenix in January. Get to Red Bank and Dumbo in February, get to Houston and California in March. Those seminars are gonna build your confidence and you get to network. So you could go there if you want to work in Boise or if you want to work in Franklin, Tennessee, you go to a weekend seminar, you meet trainers there, find out who the manager is, impress them so they can make that referral because they can reach out to that manager within their network of that gym. And they could say, No, I was at this weekend seminar, there's this really sharp kid, girl, guy, whoever. I think that would be a great opportunity for you to interview them. It's just a warmer lead versus cold looking at a resume. Hopefully, you found this helpful. Again, this is in my book. I have an example of a one-page resume. We have numerous examples within the SUF CPT program. We have mentorship. We have three certifications. Mentorship allows for you to talk to someone, to hold you accountable, level you up. If you want 2026 to be your best year ever, you need mentorship. And that's what we provide. Remember, big biceps are better than small ones, and keep showing up.