Careers

Competency based interviewing assesses future performance based on past behaviour. It can give valuable insights into an individual's preferred style of working and help predict behaviour in future situations.

Questions will be asked to draw information required to support the key competencies of the role.

Questions may be worded in the format of “Can you give me an example when…?” or “Tell me about a time when you…”

Responses should be structured to describe a situation or task, the action you took and the end result.

Find tips and advice on interview preparation to help you achieve interview success.

Shortlisting will be determined through the following stages:

1. Application form - applicants will have to demonstrate they meet the minimum criteria at this stage
2. Aptitude test - this stage will assess shortlisted applicants on the following topics, spatial awareness, mental arithmetic, engineering problems and design problems. The aptitude tests are conducted by an external assessor and individuals will be shortlisted at this stage based on the scores achieved.
3. Assessment centre- this could be a practical skills test to test your hand skills. Individuals will be shortlisted at this stage based on the scores achieved.
4. Competency based interview - we will invite shortlisted applicants to interview to see how well they match the essential qualities required for the position.

For each stage we will note our important dates on our website and Facebook page. 

If you are unsuccessful at any stage we will write to confirm this.

A meter reader reads electricity meters in all homes and businesses throughout Northern Ireland. These readings are then forwarded to electricity suppliers. The role involves interaction with the public, flexible, target driven work and travel.

Our tree cutters are responsible for the vegetation and tree management programme on our 32,000 kilometres of overhead line network. This is specialised utility arboricultural work close to overhead lines and is carried out right across Northern Ireland. This is a really important role as unmanaged trees near overhead lines can cause interruptions to supply and could also result in potentially hazardous situations to the public and our employees.

This is a specialist role where employees are responsible for the construction, maintenance and refurbishment of the distribution and transmission overhead power line network, including tree cutting. Our overhead lines technicians work at various locations across Northern Ireland.

Our project engineers are responsible for the exceptional delivery of our projects and programmes of work. They design substations, overhead lines, underground cable systems from 230 volts up to 275,000 volts. They guarantee projects are carried out to the highest standards of safety and quality, in a timely fashion and importantly within budget. Projects within NIE Networks require multi-disciplinary roles so it is important for our project engineers to coordinate and manage this.

Our cable jointers install, connect and repair high and low voltage underground power cables. The design and construction of these cables is specialised and to work on them you will require a higher skill level than is needed for cables in the general electrical contracting industries.

Design engineers are responsible for assisting in the delivery of the design, costing and procurement of all plant associated with substation projects. This role also includes the associated design for protection and control.

Metering electricians are responsible for the inspection, installation, and maintenance and testing of domestic, small commercial metering and low voltage main metering. They are also responsible for working with high voltage main metering and are required to do other metering related tasks as and when required.

Planning engineers are concerned with the future network. They consider the various uses of the network, meeting customer demands at all times to the arranged standards, facilitating generation access and making energy markets work efficiently. They are also responsible for carrying out network studies, costing developments and probabilistic analysis of flows and failure rates to decide the economic level of network development or asset replacement.

Our plant maintenance electricians are responsible for the installation and maintenance of high voltage substations, transformers, switch gear and protection systems that facilitate the delivery of power between our transmission and distribution networks and the customer.

Our technical engineers are responsible for commissioning, maintaining and carrying out fault investigation and analysis on the protective devices and systems, which safeguard the high voltage electricity network.