Generating apprenticeship applications, with Essential Energy

OBJECTIVES

Essential Energy partnered with The Careers Department to drive awareness and applications for their apprenticeship programs; specifically targeting two of their five streams: Powerline Worker and Zone Substation Electrical Technician.

The goal: reach students who already knew they wanted to pursue a trade, and show them that the energy sector deserved a place on their radar. Energy roles are often overlooked at this stage of decision-making; with most students only being aware of the residential application of trades qualifications.

PARTNERSHIP INCLUSIONS

The Careers Department travelled to two Essential Energy work sites in Lismore and Tamworth, shadowing staff to capture an authentic day in the life of a Powerline Worker and a Zone Substation Electrical Technician. These day in the life videos became the foundation of the campaign; giving students a genuine, unfiltered look inside the role.

Alongside this, The Careers Department built two Virtual Work Experience tasks in collaboration with Essential Energy, designed to let students test their aptitude and interest for each role before committing to a pathway.

In the first task, students assessed real drone footage from the Lismore region to identify cross arms requiring replacement, used a network map to locate the substation supplying the relevant pole, and learned and labelled the equipment needed to complete the job.

In the second task, students were placed inside a live outage scenario; using an interactive Single Line Diagram to identify the source of the fault and working through a series of interactive steps to isolate the problem on a gamified circuit.

The campaign was further supported by a two-page feature in The Careers Department magazine; reaching 32,000 students nationally, with approximately 9,000 copies distributed across NSW schools.

RESULTS

In Year one, the campaign generated 235,608 impressions across platform assets, with individual role content reaching strong engagement numbers across all four career profiles.

[01]

28,403 students completed the Virtual Work Experience modules; 19% of whom were female, reflecting a meaningful reach into an audience traditionally underrepresented in trades.

[02]

2,617 students nationally listed Energy in their Game Plan on the TCD platform; with 78% of those students having directly engaged with Essential Energy content.

[03]

1,457 NSW-based students indicated they were considering an apprenticeship, with Energy ranking in the top 10 industries of interest for that cohort.

Student Oliver, a Year 10 student from The Riverina Anglican College in Wagga Wagga, completed the Powerline Worker Virtual Work Experience and updated his Game Plan the same day; adding “energy” as the industry of interest in his career pathway.

LEARNINGS

Students cannot aspire to a career they have never seen. Showing the reality of a role; on location, through the eyes of someone doing the job, is far more persuasive than any job advertisement.

When exploration is built into the decision-making process, students arrive at their career choices with confidence. For Essential Energy, that means a pipeline of applicants who already understand the work; and have chosen it deliberately.