Writing A Gym Manager Cover Letter: A Step-by-Step Guide

Looking to write an impressive gym manager cover letter? Our complete guide will tell you everything you need to know to wow potential employers and help you to stand out!

Before we start, the best way to boost your career prospects is with additional specialist qualifications and what better place to start than with our Level 4 Sports Nutrition Course.

Browse our course prospectus for more information on our personal trainer courses. 

Step 1 - Research the Gym You Want to Manage

When you’re writing a cover letter for a gym manager position you want to make sure you research the facility before starting. 

Not only will this help you prepare what you’re going to say, it will be reflected in the letter making it seem more in-depth and specific to that company.

You don’t want the employer to feel as though you’re using the same template for several positions! The more specific you can be, the more dedicated you’ll seem and stand out to those hiring!

Some of the things you might want to look for include:

• Is it a high end gym or a budget gym?
• Is it strictly a gym or a health club?
• What classes are on offer?
• How big is the team?
• Is it a fitness franchise? 

Knowing all of these things will help you decide what to focus on in your gym manager covering letter to be more specific about why you’re right for the role.

For example, if the gym has a small team of personal trainers you can discuss this and promote how you’ve fostered a strong connection with colleagues before.

If the facility is a health club, you can research the other services they offer and see if they align with your skills- these could include holistic therapies including sports massage and swimming.  

If you’ve done a Level 3 Sports Massage course like ours, you can focus on this in your cover letter.

There’s a few different platforms you can use for this research which we’ll look at now! 

The Facility’s Website 

There will usually be an “about us” page on a gym’s website that tells you details about who they are and what they do:

As you can see, you can also find details of their membership schemes, the classes they offer, and the equipment they use.

Social Media Pages

You can also look at social media pages. This will give you an idea of what the company focuses on and privileges in their own promotional content. 

For example, looking at David Lloyd’s Instagram page you can see what other services they offer besides exercise: 

There’s mention of:

• A sauna
• A crystal steam room
• Plunge pool
• A whirl pool

All of this tells you that it’s a more upmarket facility that offers a range of different services, which you can focus on when writing your gym manager cover letter.

Job Descriptions

The job description itself will also give you some of the key information you’ll need such as the classes on offer and the structure of the team. 

In the job description below, you can see there’s a few details about the business:

This gives you some information about: 

• The size of the gym
• The services on offer
• The style of facility 

You can use all of this information in your cover letter for a gym manager position. You can get more details from the website but this is a good place to start for an overview.

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If you want more tips on progressing your career, and applying for fitness roles, check out our other articles below: 

• How To Make Money As A Personal Trainer
• How To Write A Gym Manager CV 
• 13 Helpful Tips For Gym Managers

Step 2 - Structure Your Gym Manager Covering Letter Effectively 

Before you start writing your cover letter for a gym manager position you should have an idea of structure. 

That way you’re making sure to include everything without running the risk of rambling and running out of space!

You want to be concise, clear, and personal with your gym manager cover letter and following a structure will help all of that.

Your cover letter for a gym manager position should follow this structure:

• Your contact information
• Contact information of employer
• Salutation
• Body of the letter
• Signing off
• Signature

You should also make sure you attend to an order within each section. You should stick to the following structure for each point you make: 

• Point
• Evidence
• Explain

The P.E.E method ensures your sentences are well structured and helps you to minimise waffle! Make a statement, provide evidence for it, and then add one last sentence to explain some more details. 

For example, stating that you're a ''dedicated, committed and hard-working person'' doesn't quite have the same impact as a point alone without evidence and explaination. 

Your point becomes a lot stronger if you add something along the lines of: ''I've demonstrated this with my current employer with a 100% attendance record over 6 months, even achieving an employee of the month award for January''.

Step 3 - Writing Your Gym Manager Cover Letter

Now you know how to structure the gym manager cover letter as a whole, we’ll look at exactly what each section should include.

Contact Information 

At the top of the page, either in the middle or to the right hand side, you should include the following information:

• Your full name
• Your full address
• Email address
• Phone number 

This will also give your employer an increased sense of your personality and help you to stand out by making your image as well as your gym manager skills memorable. 

Employer Contact Information

You’ll only need to include this if you’ll be posting your letter physically rather than sending a digital copy to your potential employer. 

If you’re sending your gym manager cover letter by post you’ll need to include the full address of your employer as well as the contact information for them. 

This could either be the name and address of the company or if you know the name of the person you’ll be directly applying to, include this information on the gym manager covering letter.

However, in the interests of writing a concise cover letter for a gym manager job, you don’t need to include this if you’re applying via a company’s hub or a job website.

Salutation

This is how you will introduce your letter and so this is of optimum importance in terms of the first impression your gym manager cover letter will make. 

You need to be as specific as possible so that you’re personalising the cover letter for each gym manager job. 

This means you should always try and address it to the exact person who will be reviewing your letter and dealing with hiring. This may be: 

• The head of HR
• Upper management
• The employer  

You should use their full name if you can. This shows that you’ve paid attention to the details of the application and will work with your research to show you’re not just using the same cover letter for every role! 

If you don’t know who that is just from the job description, or advert, then you should take the time to find this out as it will make you look more determined and may well be the thing that makes you stand out as a PT for this job. 

You can call the office of the company to find out who deals with hiring people and use their name on your letter.

Alternatively, many gyms will list their staff on their website or Linkedin pages so you can look for it this way, checking who deals with staffing or HR.

For example, as you can see below Sarah Redfearn is the HR Manager for Fitness First in Manchester:

Sarah even has something on her page about hiring for a particular position so there’ll usually be a clear indication that you’ve found the right person! 

When you do, this means you can address your cover letter for a gym manager position explicitly to the person dealing with the application process. 

Otherwise, you should use the generic ‘Dear Sir/Madam’ to remain formal and appropriate. However, as we’ve said, it’s definitely worth taking some time to discover the correct person!

First Section of a Gym Manager Cover Letter

The first part of the body of your cover letter for a gym manager position should be a brief summary of the following:

• The role title you’re applying for 
• Your interest in the gym manager role
• A short sentence or two about why you think you’re right for the role

You should be very concise here and not go into too much detail. You want this to be a punchy way of summing up why you’d be right for the position, before elaborating using the job specification.

This is why this first section should only be a short paragraph. You don’t want to ramble too much and lose the employer’s attention. 

As this is where you will start rapport building with your potential employer, make sure you think about what might make your approach unique! 

For example, instead of just saying you have the experience for the role, which everybody else will be saying too, mention briefly how many years’ experience you have or the fact that you have more than one qualification.

Second Section of a Gym Manager Cover Letter

The most important things to mention will depend on which facility you’re applying for.  

For example, as shown below, positions will often want you to have at least a Level 2 Fitness Instructor qualification:

This qualifies you to work as a fitness instructor, teaching classes and giving basic instruction on the gym floor, in a gym or health club.

By letting the employer know you’re qualified, you make an impression early on in your gym manager cover letter that you have the expertise needed for the role. 

You’ll also know that if you’ve completed a Level 3 Personal Trainer course, or further master’s qualifications, you should prioritise these in the application to show you’re more than qualified for the position!

As well as your qualifications, remember this is where you can really sell the details of your experience and speak to exactly what’s being asked for in the role. 

One way you can do this is to look at the job description and person specification and write down concisely how you meet each requirement.  

In the example below, the employer wants the candidate to be highly motivated and ambitious:

If you were applying for this job you need to write about how you’ve displayed these characteristics in your previous roles. 

Remember to try to be concise but thorough too. It’s okay if this is more than one short paragraph. You want your writing to be snappy and to the point, whilst still having enough detail in there to impress your potential employer. 

You can have a few short paragraphs here, detailing your experience and qualifications, that speak to individual points on the job application.

Third Section of a Cover Letter for a Gym Manager Position

This section of the gym manager cover letter is where you will display your knowledge of the company you’re applying to work for.

This is one of the main ways in which a cover letter differs from a CV because you’re developing on what you said in the first paragraph about what attracts you to the company. 

You’ll be talking about your passions and soft skills as well as how your experience aligns you more holistically with this particular brand and job.

For example, Total Fitness talk about prioritising choice for their clients and having a well-rounded approach to working out:

In your gym manager cover letter you can focus on the extent of your different skills as well as any alternative fitness classes you’ve taught or taken part in. 

Like we said earlier, you can find this information in one of the following locations:

• ‘About us’ page on a company’s website
• The job description
• Social media pages

You want to always relate this back to yourself and discuss how your own passions and interests align with that of the company and brand you want to work for. 

Final Paragraph of the Gym Manager Cover Letter

You should end your gym manager covering letter with a short summary of why you think you’re a good fit for the role. 

You can build on the sentences you used to start the cover letter. Why the gym manager position is right for you, and what you uniquely bring to the table, should be concise and stick in the employer’s mind! 

You also want to include a ‘call to action’ in your final paragraph. This is essentially something that compels the employer to contact you. 

For example, you might include when you’re available for an interview and say they can call or email you any time.

Sign Off Section of the Gym Manager Cover Letter

This is simply how you end the letter in the appropriate manner, depending on whether you know the name of the recipient or not. 

If you’ve done your research and found the name of the person in charge of hiring, end your letter with: 

Yours sincerely,

If you don’t know their name (if you’ve started the letter ‘Dear Sir/Madam) then the formal way to end the letter is:

Yours faithfully,

If you’re sending a physical copy then you should include a signature below your name at the bottom, but you don’t have to do this if it’s through a job portal or via email.

Step 4 - Perfecting Your Gym Manager Cover Letter Formatting

Now that you know exactly how to structure your cover letter for a gym manager position, and what to include in each section, let’s look at formatting. 

This means how your cover letter is presented and how you can ensure it looks professional and readable for the employer.  

Below are some of the key things you’ll need to consider.

Font

Make sure you use a clear, simple font without much ornamentation. Examples of these include: 

• Arial 
• Verdana
• Times New Roman
• Calibri

Font Size

You also want to make sure you’re using an appropriate font size. Too small and you’ll look like you’ve hardly written anything, as well as it being more difficult to read.

Too big and your cover letter will look unprofessional and be more pages than it needs to be.

We recommend using size 12 as a standard for documents of this kind, with any titles or subtitles in a size 16.

Paragraphs 

As we said earlier, you want to make sure there’s flow and your writing is punchy and readable with shorter, snappier paragraphs.

You also will need to indent from the left or leave a line between each one so that it looks neater and more inviting to the person reading it.

Gym Manager Cover Letter Example

We’ve designed an example cover letter for a gym manager position so you can have a look closer at what implementing these tips will look like. 

You can use a template, or a sample cover letter, for a gym manager job but stick to our structure and always include your own voice and make it your own! 

Below is one we’ve designed:

Tips on Making Your Gym Manager Cover Letter Stand Out

Positions such as these can be quite competitive so you’ll want to find a way to make your gym manager cover letter stand out. 

Here are some tips on how you can do that to ensure you attract the attention of your potential employer!

#1 Keep Your Gym Manager Cover Letter Consistent with Your CV

You want to make sure that your cover letter works hand in hand with your CV so that the same experience and qualifications are detailed. 

This shows attention to detail and will make your application look more professional and thought out. 

For instance, if you’ve worked as a PT, your personal trainer CV will include a list of your qualifications.

You can also use the gym manager job description. These will often contain details and keywords you can use in your letter. 

For example, the job description below focuses heavily on the idea of luxury and work in a leisure club or hotel:

If you’ve been a personal trainer on a cruise ship, hotel, or spa then you’ll know to privilege this in your CV and cover letter for this gym manager position.

#2 Show Your Impact in Your Gym Manager Covering Letter

You should try to be as clear as possible in your achievements, using statistics to back up what you’ve done for your places of work.  

This will show the actual impact you've had in previous positions and how you can do the same for the company you’re applying with! 

For example:

• Did you increase attendance when you were teaching fitness classes? 
• How many clients did you start off with and how many did you end up with?
• Can you point to PT testimonials from clients and include examples? 

All of these things are tangible ways to track the impact you’ve had in the gym environment and for your clients. 

You can talk specifically about targets in this regard, and how you’ve met them or exceeded them. Most positions, as shown below, will be target and growth focused:

You can discuss how you’ve upsold membership packages and classes to existing members as well as getting PT clients. 

All of this is a clear indication to your potential employer that you will have a direct and trackable impact on their business growth and sales.

#3 Use Design to Make Your Gym Manager Cover Letter Memorable

This is one way that you can align your CV with your cover letter for a gym manager position in a memorable way. 

Having a flash of colour on both documents will make your cover letter pop. Bear in mind the employer will be reading a lot of these that are just blocks of text, so having something visual will make yours stick in their mind! 

Including a photo on your PT or fitness instructor CV will add professionalism and memorability but you should be careful with the kind of image you use.

Ideally it should match your linkedin profile and it should be a headshot rather than a selfie. This is because it should still look professional: it’s there to enhance your application, not distract from it!

Below are some examples of how you could do this:

Before You Go! 

Now you know what you need to do to impress employers, get started with our Level 4 Sports Nutrition Course to develop your expertise and become the best gym manager!

You can download and browse OriGym’s complete course prospectus for further details on all of our courses.