Heavy Lift: How PureGym decreased cost-per-hire by -59%
PureGym is the UK’s largest gym operator, with over 2 million members across more than 680 gyms. PureGym chose inploi, the leading candidate experience solution for enterprises with high volume hiring needs, to transform its recruitment strategy.
After just three months, inploi has delivered a +65% increase in candidates progressed post-application and almost +55% more qualified applicants year-on-year.
By combining a fully-branded, mobile-first careers site with programmatic job distribution and real-time performance analytics, PureGym has seen significant improvement in metrics such as:
YoY increase in candidates progressed
YoY increase in qualified applicants
reduction in application completion time from ~15 minutes to under 1 minute
decrease in cost per hire
Additionally, using inploi’s reporting and analytics has led to improved decision-making across 680+ locations.
About PureGym
With over 2 million members, 680 gyms, and 6,000 employees across eight countries, PureGym is the UK’s largest gym chain, and one of Europe’s fastest-growing fitness operators. As the business scaled globally, so did the challenge of attracting, engaging, and hiring the right talent at speed, particularly Personal Trainers, a frontline role that is central to the brand’s member experience and commercial model.
Despite strong employer brand recognition, PureGym’s Talent Acquisition team was under pressure: it received too many unqualified applicants, lacked the data clarity to make informed decisions, and its hiring experience didn’t reflect the energy and innovation of the PureGym brand.
Challenges
High Volume, Low Match Quality
PureGym’s Talent Acquisition team faced a common challenge in high-volume hiring: plenty of applicants, but not enough of the right ones. For Personal Trainer roles in particular, a significant number of candidates didn’t meet the required qualifications. This created unnecessary admin, slowed down time-to-hire, and risked leaving key roles unfilled — ultimately affecting service quality and the member experience.
Scattered Data, Manual Tracking
Before working with inploi, the Talent Acquisition team tracked some key metrics manually across multiple different platforms, making it difficult to measure performance, identify bottlenecks, or optimise strategy in real time. The team estimated it spent many hours per week compiling reports and reconciling data manually.
Burnout from Job Board Management
Previously, the Talent Acquisition team managed its recruitment marketing budget across multiple credit-based job boards, each of which required hands-on management with little to no visibility into return on spend by role or campaign.
Lack of Insight but High Cost Per Hire
Without centralised, automated analytics, it took guesswork to make any material improvements to the team’s hiring performance. However, the team knew it needed to make smarter decisions faster, and with fewer resources.
Objectives
Working with inploi, PureGym set out to achieve four strategic objectives:
Reduce application volume while increasing candidate quality
Attract and hire more Personal Trainers to support business growth
Automate manual workflows and improve visibility and insights across the candidate journey
Drive improved decision-making and measure performance gains with better data
inploi’s Innovative Approach
Candidate Experience Overhaul
With its Careers Site and Chatbot & Flows modules, inploi rebuilt PureGym’s careers site and application journey with mobile-first, branded design. With this solution, PureGym could reduce the time it took to complete an application whilst also increasing the conversion of higher quality, relevant candidates to completed applications.
Programmatic Distribution & Targeted Campaigns
With its Talent Attraction module, inploi automated the job distribution and recruitment marketing management, layering in social media advertising for hard-to-fill locations. As a result, inploi streamlined PureGym’s candidate sourcing model and eliminated once-draining inefficiencies.
Real-Time Insights, All in One Place
With a central dashboard within inploi’s Reporting & Analytics module, PureGym’s Talent Acquisition team gained full visibility into the performance of its application process, including key metrics such as application quality, candidate drop-off points, and ROI by recruitment campaign. Having a unified source-of-truth also freed up significant time for hiring managers and levelled-up smarter decision-making.
Results
+65% YoY increase in candidates progressed post-application
+55% YoY increase in qualified applications
Application time reduced by -93% from 10–15 minutes to under 1 minute
Cost per hire reduced by -59% from £65 to £27
Client Testimonial
Jerry James, Talent Acquisition Partner at PureGym
Conclusion
For PureGym, smarter hiring isn’t just about filling roles, it’s about building a consistent, high-performing team that powers growth across all their markets. With inploi, they’ve gained a future-ready platform that combines automation, insight, and experience, designed for high-volume recruitment that delivers results.
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