Is Hiring Getting Harder?
How to Find Fitness Leaders Who Can Deliver
Finding the right leader can become more difficult just when your organization needs to grow. More applications may give you more candidates to review, but they do not necessarily make it easier to identify who can improve performance, develop your team, and support expansion.
For fitness and wellness employers, performance-based hiring offers a practical way to evaluate candidates: define what the role needs to accomplish, then explore the evidence that a candidate can deliver those results.
What the Hiring Benchmark Report Reveals
Criteria’s 2026–27 Hiring Benchmark Report surveyed 1,027 U.S.-based hiring professionals across a range of industries. Among hiring professionals surveyed:
- 55% cite finding high-quality candidates as a top challenge.
- 41% cite applicants using AI to misrepresent themselves as a top challenge.
- 24% say they’ve lost confidence in résumés as a reliable signal.
These findings reflect employers across industries; they are not statistics specifically about fitness and wellness organizations. They do, however, raise a relevant question for club owners and leadership teams: How do you look beyond a polished application to find candidates whose experience and results hold up?
Define What Your Next Fitness Leader Needs to Accomplish
A strong candidate needs more than an impressive title. Before reviewing applications, establish the outcomes your next leader will be responsible for achieving.
A general manager might need to improve member retention, develop department leaders, or prepare a new club for opening. A regional leader might need to strengthen sales execution and create consistent operating standards across several locations.
Discuss what success should look like during the first six to twelve months. Set realistic priorities, identify how progress will be measured, and clarify the resources available to the person you hire.
At JLR Associates, we begin with the employer’s performance objectives and use our fitness and wellness industry relationships to identify leaders with relevant accomplishments. That gives the search a clear purpose and the hiring team a shared basis for evaluating candidates.
For help establishing those expectations, explore our approach to performance-based job descriptions.
Evaluate Accomplishments Behind the Résumé
A résumé introduces a candidate’s background. Interviews provide the opportunity to understand what that experience involved.
A statement such as “increased personal training revenue” deserves further exploration. What was the starting point? Over what period did revenue improve? What did the candidate personally change? Were the gains sustained?
Performance-based interview questions help make those details clearer:
- What significant challenge did you face in a comparable role?
- What were you responsible for accomplishing?
- What actions did you personally take?
- How did you involve and develop your team?
- What changed, and how was the improvement measured?
- What setbacks did you encounter, and how did you respond?
The context matters. Leading an established club differs from opening a new facility. Managing one high-performing location differs from improving results across a region. Understanding the circumstances behind an accomplishment helps employers assess its relevance to their own business.
Address AI-Assisted Applications Through Specific Follow-Up
Using AI to improve the wording of an application is different from inventing experience. Polished writing alone does not establish whether a candidate’s claims are accurate.
The useful question is whether the candidate can explain and support what they have presented.
Ask for a detailed account of the decisions, actions, and results behind a claimed achievement. Follow up on broad answers. Explore how the candidate handled a difficult staffing decision, addressed member concerns, or adjusted an approach that was not working.
JLR’s results-focused interviews examine how candidates lead and solve problems. These conversations help assess the substance behind an application, although no interview method can guarantee that every inaccurate claim will be detected.
Use References to Add Context
Manager or supervisor references can help corroborate a candidate’s account and clarify their individual contribution.
Reference conversations can explore the candidate’s responsibilities, leadership approach, team development, and the results described during interviews. They can also identify areas where additional support or development may be needed.
Consider reference feedback alongside interview evidence and the demands of the position. Past accomplishments provide useful information, but future success also depends on the organization’s expectations, resources, and working environment.
Connect the Evidence to Your Business Needs
Effective fitness leadership recruitment brings the evaluation back to a practical decision: how well does this person’s demonstrated experience align with the work ahead?
At JLR Associates, our performance-based approach connects a candidate’s accomplishments to the demands of the role. We consider leadership capability, business context, and alignment with your organization as we help you evaluate potential hires.
Our focus is demonstrated results that align with the role—and the ability to deliver what your business needs next.
Whether you are hiring a general manager, a multi-unit leader, or a senior executive, learn more about JLR’s executive recruitment process or contact JLR Associates to discuss your leadership needs.