Crunch Fitness Guarantees Interviews for NASM-Certified Personal Trainers
Krissy Vann | Host, All Things Fitness and Wellness
The National Academy of Sports Medicine and Crunch Fitness have launched a hiring program that guarantees NASM-Certified Personal Trainers a first-round interview for open personal training positions across Crunch’s U.S. corporate and franchise locations.
The agreement expands an Interview Guarantee Program introduced by NASM earlier this year and marks its first expansion across a franchise system. The initiative creates a direct hiring pathway between NASM credential holders and Crunch locations seeking personal trainers, while leaving individual hiring decisions with the employer.
To participate, candidates must have earned and maintained an NCCA-accredited NASM-CPT credential. Trainers apply for available positions through Crunch’s careers site and identify their NASM certification status during the application process.
The guarantee applies only to the initial interview. It does not guarantee candidates will advance through the hiring process or receive an employment offer.
For Crunch, the arrangement provides its corporate and franchise locations with a pipeline of candidates who have already obtained a recognized personal training credential. For NASM, it extends the certification organization’s role beyond education and credentialing into connecting graduates with potential employers.
“The data is clear: demand for certified personal trainers continues to grow, and employers need a faster, more reliable way to connect with qualified talent,” said Mehul Patel, CEO of NASM. “Our Interview Guarantee partnership with Crunch takes that commitment further by creating direct pathways to interviews across a franchise system that reaches communities throughout the country. This is the kind of partnership we want to continue building as we expand access to career opportunities for our NASM community.”
The partnership comes as employment demand for fitness professionals is projected to continue growing. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of fitness trainers and instructors will increase 12% between 2024 and 2034, with approximately 74,200 openings expected annually over the decade.
“Finding trainers who are both highly credentialed and the right cultural fit is one of our biggest priorities as we keep growing.” said Pam Brown, EVP, Head of People and Culture at Crunch. “This partnership with NASM gives us a direct line to trainers who’ve already proven they meet a rigorous standard — and it does that across our entire footprint, corporate and franchise alike. That’s a meaningful advantage as we scale our hiring.”
The agreement also reflects a broader workforce challenge for fitness operators as club networks expand and demand for trainers increases. Recruiting qualified personal trainers can affect an operator’s ability to grow personal training revenue, maintain service levels and support new locations.
By connecting certification directly with an interview opportunity, the NASM-Crunch program creates a more defined route from trainer education into employment while giving Crunch locations another source for recruiting credentialed candidates.
