Home » Personal Training » Top 5 Personal Trainer Interview Questions (And How to Answer Them)

Getting hired as a new personal trainer can sometimes be as hard as sitting for the certification exam. Walking into your first interview can be nerve-racking and may include hands-on components you’ve never had to do for other job openings.

To help you prepare, Tyler Valencia, Ph.D.(c), gives insight into real questions that can come up during a personal trainer interview and how to answer them to get the job. To develop this guide, Tyler reached out to past and present fitness managers and asked them to provide examples of the questions they ask during interviews with new personal training candidates.

1. What is your availability?

This is the question that Tyler remembers the most being asked. Should you be truthful? Yes. The gym may be looking for a trainer who meets its demands. This might be asked because the gym has specified onboarding education at certain hours of the week.

2. What is your experience level?

When it comes to experience, this can be a tricky topic: if you just passed your personal training certification, you may need to gain experience.

• If you have no experience: Show that you are willing to learn and want the opportunity to grow. Managers will view this as an opportunity to help shape a new employee and have someone who follows their protocol to the T.
• If you have experience: Be humble if you have experience. If you have specialty certifications and experience, focus on your attention to detail with your niche audience and how much you enjoy that process.

3. What got you into this profession? (What is your ‘why’?)

A simple but common question you might uncover in the personal trainer interview is your ‘why’. Fitness managers like these questions because it helps them understand your motivation and how effective you can be in your new role working in the gym.

• They want to see how original you are.
• If you’re answering that you want to “help” people, that’s a pretty standard answer.
• Find a unique answer that answers this question authentically and is true to your belief system.
• State how you know the dedication it takes to make fitness a career, and look forward to learning the unique culture of the gym.

4. What is your new client routine?

How are you handling a new lead, and how are you starting to create a connection with this new client? Interpersonal skills are what a manager is looking for.

• Come up with a plan of how you would handle a new lead given to you by a manager.
• Have a script or protocol you would say to get that lead into the gym.
• They might have you do a quick demo with a member to show how you interact with a client.
• This is a pressure situation, maybe come prepared with an exercise that you have nailed down and can cue no matter who’s in front of you.

5. What is your niche?

Yes, being able to train several populations is great and should be a standard, but where does your passion lie? This helps you focus your programming and marketing skills. Note that if your goal is to train athletes, it’s a much harder population to attract, and there’s more competition.

Bonus: Handling Sample Programming Scenarios

A tricky question that might be asked during your interview is how you would program for an imaginary personal training client. During this process, the manager is trying to assess your ability to think on your feet and see how you would approach different training populations. There might be some curveball questions about how you would train specific populations and the protocol you would follow. Coming prepared and researching a couple of scenarios can help you ace this part of the interview and ensure that this fictitious program runs as smoothly as when real clients are standing before you.