Personal Trainer CV Example, Tips & Writing Guide

The time has come to update your personal trainer CV and you’ve come up on some obstacles. Most probably you’ve been operating as a sole trader so you haven’t had an employer for quite a while.

At the gym or in the park, personal training is incredibly varied, from the location of your appointments right down to your most important measure of success—your clients’ goals. Yet you’re applying for a job and you need the recruiter to see the full picture of yours.

In this guide, you'll find an example of a personal trainer CV and step-by-step instructions with plenty of UK-specific examples for a personal training CV. On top of that, you'll get straight-to-the-point advice that’ll have your personal trainer CV at least on par.

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Personal trainer CV example 

Now you know what to include in a CV. Here’s how to prepare your CV:

1. Start your personal trainer CV off with a personal statement

Working with clients one-on-one so much, you’ve introduced yourself and launched into a quick spiel more often than most people. Your personal statement does basically the same thing for your CV. It does three things:

• Introduces you as a personal trainer
• Shows what you have to offer using concrete examples
• Describes your goals, which just happen to bring benefits to the company.

You’ll need to write a new personal trainer CV summary for every job application you submit. Luckily, there’s something of rubric you can use to get you there fast and painlessly. Simply answer all of the following questions using 3–4 sentences in total, or about 50–150 words.

• What kind of personal trainer are you?
• How long have you been working and with what kinds of clients?
• What’s your most impressive/relevant achievement?
• (Optional) What’s your most unique achievement?
• What are you hoping to be able to achieve in this job? (Not for you but for your employer.)

Your application is quite likely to be processed and sorted by an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) before a person even sets eyes on it. So be sure to mention the name of the position for which you’re applying as well as the company’s name. This will help human recruiters scan through your CV, too. 

The personal statement comes first in a personal trainer CV, but it’s best that you write it last. You’ll be able to do a much better job once you have your skills summary finished. So keep it in the back of your mind for now and come back it later.

Personal trainer CV example: personal statement

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2. Put your skills front and centre with a skills summary

There are two main CV formats that might work for a personal trainer. Choosing the right one is extremely important. Since lmost 80% of personal trainers in the UK work on a freelance basis, stick with this guide and a skills-based CV. 

If you’re in the minority who’ve been working for an employer over the past few years, then the traditional, chronological format is definitely the way to go. A chronological format puts the main emphasis on your work history, showcasing achievements from each position held. Its structure looks like this:

• Personal statement
• Work experience—a detailed employment history
• Skills—5–10 skills, each backed up with a single sentence
• Education
• (Optional) Additional sections

The functional (or skills-based) CV that this article describes should only be used if you’ve been working as a self-employed freelancer, dealing directly with clients. The emphasis here is on your skills at the expense of your work history (which will be lacking given the nature of self-employment). You should put these skills under your personal statement.

Start by choosing 3–6 key personal trainer skills to list in your summary. Add either 3–5 bullet points or a short paragraph under each skill. Use these bullet points or paragraphs to back up each skill with evidence and examples. Be as specific as you can and quantify everything you can.

Putting numbers and hard stats to your skills is much more effective than using vague or general statements. Use accomplishment statements to help structure and quantify your supporting sentences.

No experience for a CV? Highlight previous practice, internships, volunteering, and any projects that add value to your personal training career.

Personal trainer CV example: skills summary

3. Outline your work history in your personal trainer CV

Having been self-employed for some time, it’s normal that your work history be a little scant. Nevertheless, it’s important to give a basic account of your experience. All you need to include is your job title, the company’s name and location, and your dates of employment. Work from most to least recent.

Here’s a template that will make the setting-out quicker and simpler:

[Job Title]

[Company Name, Location]

[Dates of Employment]

Writing a personal trainer CV with no experience? Focus on any placement or volunteer work you’ve done. If you’ve always been self-employed, then use the template above and put ‘freelance’ or ‘self-employed’ for the company name.

If you just got your Level 3 and have no experience at all, then consider writing a student CV instead.

Personal trainer CV example: job description

4. Include an education section in your personal trainer CV

There are many roads into personal training, but in the UK they all include picking up a Level 3 personal training qualification (and ideally some public liability insurance) along the way. Make it clear you have the right qualifications for the job by setting out your personal trainer CV education section right.

When listing higher education qualifications, include the name of your qualification, the years you attended (with an expected award or graduation date if you’re still studying), and the name of the institution and its location. Use this template to help you:

[Qualification Type] [Qualification Name] (Qualification Class) (Years Studied)

[Institution Name], [Campus Location]

If you don’t have a university degree, it might be helpful to include your high school education, all the more so if it shows a long-standing interest in physical education, human movement studies, anatomy, and sports in general. Use the following templates to help you set it out:

A-levels: [Subject 1, Subject 2, and Subject 3]

[School], [Location], [Years Studied]

[Number of GCSEs] GCSEs (including Mathematics and English)

[School], [Location], [Years Studied]

List your A-levels by subject, the years during which you studied them, the name of the school and its location. For GCSEs simply state how many you completed, the years over which you completed them, the name of the school and its location.

It’s often a good idea to mention Mathematics and English when stating how many GCSEs you’ve completed. Employers often need to see that you have passes in Maths and English as a bare minimum.

Personal trainer CV education section example

5. Add a list of additional skills to your CV for a personal trainer

You’ve wowed them with a detailed and well backed-up skills summary that covers all your key personal trainer skills. Now briefly list some of the skills that spot those key ones as they do the hard reps (hard and communication skills).

Personal trainer CV example: additional skills

6. Supplement your personal trainer CV with extra sections

Fitness is not just diet and exercise, it’s a matter of something that’s not as easily defined—lifestyle. Similarly, some of what makes you a great personal trainer falls outside categories like skills, experience, and education. Adding extra CV sections is one way you can capture some of what’s otherwise missed.

You could include sections with extra qualifications, memberships, awards, languages, even hobbies. Just keep it relevant to the job at hand and you can’t go wrong.

Don't add references to your CV, though. Recruiters know they can ask for them.

Personal trainer CV example: extra sections

7. Write a personal trainer cover letter to go with your CV

Job applications are like burpees: they both conjure feelings of dread in those that don’t do a lot of them, and doing half of either doesn’t count. A personal trainer job application comes in two parts: a cover letter and a CV, in that order. Do your personal trainer CV justice with a well-written cover letter.

Include a cover letter unless it’s been made clear that your potential employer doesn’t want you to. Being explicitly told not to is the only valid reason for not doing so. A good personal trainer cover letter will follow the standard British business letter format and have the following parts:

• A properly laid-out header
• The right salutation
• A strong, attention-grabbing opening
• A rapid-fire showcase of your achievements
• A neat wrap-up and confident call to action
• A sign-off that matches the choice of salutation.

Your cover letter will end up being between half an A4 page and one A4 page, that’s about 200–350 words in total. A little discouraging, for sure, but like a leg day it’s never as bad as you think it’ll be. Plus, you’re halfway there to having your cover letter written once you have your skills summary done.

A few last things to keep in mind for your personal training CV

You don’t turn up to training sessions shabby and unkempt, make sure your CV and cover letter are as presentable as you are. Keep in mind the following basic CV layout formatting rules:

• Leave your personal details near the top of your CV where they’ll be easy to find. Your date of birth, gender, age or address don't belong on a CV.
• Use subheadings and plenty of white space to clearly break your CV structure down into sections.
• Choose an appropriate CV font like Noto, Garamond, Arial, or just stick to the defaults, like Liberation or Calibri.
• To enhance readability, use a simple CV template with no fancy graphics.
• Send your CV as a PDF file unless explicitly asked for something else.
• How long can a CV be? Keep to a one-page per decade of experience maximum, never going over two pages.

One final piece of CV advice: follow up if you haven’t heard back after a week. A quick phone call or email is simple enough to do and could really pay off.

And... that's it! Now you know what a good CV should look like.

You don’t have to be a CV writing expert. In the LiveCareer CV builder you’ll find ready-made content for every industry and position, which you can then add with a single click.

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I hope this article took some of the stress and guesswork out of writing a personal trainer CV! Is there anything I touched on that you’d like more information about? Any comments, questions, feedback or advice of your own to share? Leave it all in the comments section below.

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Our editorial team has reviewed this article for compliance with Livecareer’s editorial guidelines. It’s to ensure that our expert advice and recommendations are consistent across all our career guides and align with current CV and cover letter writing standards and trends. We’re trusted by over 10 million job seekers, supporting them on their way to finding their dream job. Each article is preceded by research and scrutiny to ensure our content responds to current market trends and demand.