If You're Hiring 100 People a Year, Job Ads Are Not a Strategy

If you’re running a multi-site gym group and hiring 50–100+ people a year, let me say this:

Job ads are not a hiring strategy. They’re a last-mile tactic.

And when they’re doing all the heavy lifting, something upstream is broken.

Why Hiring Feels So Hard Right Now

Most multi-site operators are doing everything “right”:

They’re spending on Seek and LinkedIn They’re posting regularly They’re leaning on recruiters They’re chasing referrals

And yet hiring still feels exhausting, slow, and fragile.

That’s not because the market is broken. It’s because volume hiring at scale cannot rely on reactive tools.

Job ads work when:

You’re filling one or two roles You have time You’re happy to wait

They fail when:

You’re opening new clubs Leaders are burning out Vacancies impact revenue Growth depends on speed and consistency

The Mistake Most Gym Groups Make

The biggest assumption I see is this:

“If we just post the role again, the right person will appear.”

At scale, that mindset creates:

Constant urgency Recycled candidates Lower standards over time Exhausted managers Expensive mis-hires

You end up competing for the same small pool, over and over again, and wondering why nothing changes.

What Scalable Operators Do Differently

The gym groups that scale sustainably stop asking:

“How do we fill this role?”

They start asking:

“How do we build a system that never leaves us short?”

That shift changes everything.

How Talent Actually Enters a Multi-Site Business

There are only three ways people come into your organisation:

External hires with experience. Necessary, but limited, competitive, and expensive.

Some of the best Club Managers and Membership Consultants don’t come from other gyms.

They came from:

Retail leadership Hospitality management Sales environments Universities

They already know KPIs, rosters, customers, and pressure.

Fitness skills are teachable. Mindset, reliability, and leadership are not.

The strongest operators don’t wait for “ready-made” leaders.

They:

identify potential early put people on clear pathways develop future leaders before roles exist

That’s how panic hiring disappears.

The Question That Separates Fragile Growth From Scalable Growth

Struggling operators ask:

“Can we hire someone for this role?”

Stable operators ask:

“Who’s next in the pipeline?”

If your answer is “we’ll put an ad up and see,” your growth is always one resignation away from stalling.

Why This Matters More Than Ever

Expansion doesn’t fail because of equipment or marketing.

It fails because:

leadership depth runs out hiring becomes reactive standards slip under pressure culture fractures across sites

Job ads don’t fix that.

Systems do.

A Thought Worth Sitting With

If you’re planning to open more clubs, acquire sites, or scale aggressively in the next 12–24 months:

Are you relying on job ads, or are you building a talent supply system that can actually keep up?

Because at 100 hires a year, recruitment isn’t a function. It’s infrastructure.

And infrastructure needs to be built, not posted.

If this resonates and you’re rethinking how your group approaches hiring at scale, I’m always open to a strategic conversation.

Not about filling roles. About building the system that makes them easier to fill in the first place.

DM me if you want to collaborate and talk through what a scalable talent supply system for your business looks like.