One of the most time consuming, rewarding and important endeavors is hiring new trainers. As I have talked about before in this blog, doing a needs analysis of your current staff is the first step. By looking at your existing staff, you can better understand what areas you need to address and what clients you need to better serve (i.e. pre/post rehab specialist, pre/post natal specialist, baby boomer specialist, etc.).
Secondly, you need to advertise the opening of position. One of the best ways is to market internally to your existing club staff. Your current club staff has already been indoctrinated into your club’s culture. They know what your club is like and which of their friends, acquaintances, professional colleagues or relatives would be the best fit for you. Another way of marketing your staffing needs is through online services. Besides your own club website, Craigslist and Jobs.com are great and free resources you should tap into to increase exposure of your club’s job opportunities. Creating a relationship with local colleges and secondary schooling institutions also pre-qualifies that your candidates have had some higher education past high school.
Third is the interview process. This is the most time consuming part of the hiring process; as it should be. The longer time you take with this step, the more assuredly you are that your new hire truly wants to make a career at your facility. I suggest the following steps:
- Receive a professional resume — regardless of what level of club you operate, having each candidate submit a professional resume sets the tone of professionalism and conduct from the outset of the interview process.
- Phone screen — this allows you to quickly asses vocal and phone communication skills.
- First sit down interview — allows you to visually assess candidates’ professional appearance, how they interact with other club employees and how they would greet potential clients.
- Second sit down interview or training session — this step I feel is very important if you can do a mock training session to evaluate technical skills and presence of the candidate on the fitness floor.
The fourth step is the offer or rejection. At this point you should be able to discern if the candidate will work for your department. If you make a phone call include some way of delivering a job description and compensation package that the candidate can review and return a acknowledgment they received and understand these items.
The last step is training the new hire, which is a much lengthier topic.
Vic Spatola is the Director of Personal Training for Greenwood Athletic and Tennis Club in Greenwood Village, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. Contact him at vics@greenwoodatc.com.
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
