Shortly after my last post here, I got a phone call from a local YMCA I'd sent in a resume to.
They want to fill 3 shifts a week, 12 hours in all. Their approach is to try to fill particular shifts with particular people and keep them there a fairly long time. People are always coming and going and they give first pick of the freed-up shifts to current staff.
The YMCA's approach, apparently, is to begin people as gym instructors, then spend some months sussing them out to see if they know what they're doing - and if or when they do, move them on to PTing. This makes sense, since as I saw in my courses, there's a wide variety of knowledge of exercise technique among the people going through.
The guy said they received 35 resumes, would ring up 9-10 people, and then interview in person about 5. The face-to-face interview would be followed another day by a prac session, as I've had before.
He asked how employment there would work with the other job. I explained that they had no fixed shifts, and had not laid any out for me yet. "Whoever gives me work first, I'll work the second job around them," I said.
The YMCA is quite good to get into, as they've facilities everywhere and are well-known. So are a lot of mainstream commercial chain gyms, but... they're mainstream commercial chain gyms. Certainly they have much valuable in them, but I think I can best develop my skills with beginners in a community gym.
So I'll go to a face-to-face interview with the YMCA guy next week and we'll see how it goes.
It's pretty common for trainers to be employed at multiple gyms. I mean, 12 hours a week? Thus multiple jobs per trainer. Yes, 3 trainers with 3 part-time jobs could just be 3 trainers with 3 full-time jobs, but that would be logical, why would anyone do things that way?
Hours can grow, particularly if you're competent - thus getting more gym instructor shifts - and attract lots of PT clients, but of course that takes time.