Certified personal trainer resume examples from 2026

A well-written resume summary is basically an elevator pitch. You are summing up your skills and experience in a few sentences to wow recruiters, hiring managers, and decision makers into giving you an interview. Here are some tips to putting your best foot first with your resume summary:

Step 1: Mention your current job title or the role you're pursuing.

Step 2: Include your years of experience in certified personal trainer-related roles. Consider adding relevant company and industry experience as relevant to the job listing.

Step 3: Highlight your greatest accomplishments. Here is your chance to make sure your biggest wins aren't buried in your resume.

Step 4: Again, keep it short. Your goal is to summarize your experience and highlight your accomplishments, not write a paragraph.

These four steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some certified personal trainer interviews.

Your Skills section is an easy way to let recruiters know you have the skills to do the job. Just as importantly, it can help your resume not get filtered out by hiring software. Here is how to make the most of your skills section and make sure you have the right keywords:

1. Look to the job listing. You often need to include the exact keywords from the job description. Take note of the skills listed for the job.
2. Put all relevant hard and soft skills in your skills section.
3. Be specific. If you are too broad, you may not be giving the best picture of your skills and leave the hiring manager uncertain of your abilities.
4. Be up to date. Software names change and companies merge. Don't look out of touch by being careless.
5. Be accurate. Spelling and even upper or lowercase can dramatically change meanings. Make sure you are correctly listing your skills.

These five steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some certified personal trainer interviews.

Your work experience should be structured:

1. With your most recent roles first, followed by earlier roles in reverse chronological order.
2. Job title, along with company name and location on the left.
3. Put the corresponding dates of employment on the left side.
4. Keep only relevant jobs on your work experience.

Remember, your resume is not a list of responsibilities or a job description. This is your chance to show why you're good at your job and what you accomplished.

Use the XYZ formula for your work experience bullet points. Here's how it works:

• Use strong action verbs like Led, Built, or Optimized.
• Follow up with numbers when possible to support your results. How much did performance improve? How much revenue did you drive?
• Wrap it up by explaining the actions you took to achieve the result and how you made an impact.

This creates bullet points that read Achieved X, measured by Y, by doing Z.

Here are examples from great certified personal trainer resumes:

Employers are looking for a few things when looking at the Education section of your resume:

• The highest degree you have achieved.
• TWhere you attended school, and the dates (Although if you graduated some time ago, leave the date off to avoid ageism)
• TField of study
• TAny honors, relevant coursework, achievements, or pertinent activities

Here are some examples of good education entries from certified personal trainer resumes:

If you have any additional certifications, add them to the certification section.

To list, use the full name of the certification and the organization that issued it, along with the date of achievement.

If you have any of these certifications, be sure to include them on your certified personal trainer resume:

1. Certified Personal Trainer
2. Advanced Personal Training Certification (APT)
3. Personal Trainer Certification
4. Fitness Nutrition Certification
5. First Aid, CPR and AED Instructor
6. Personal Fitness Trainer
7. Certified Nutrition Specialist (CNS)
8. Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS)
9. Health Coach Certification
10. Water Fitness Trainer (WFT)