I’m Chloe and I’m a first year apprentice electrician with Ergon Energy.

So, at the moment I’m in the workshop. So, fixing transformers, draining oil, doing PCB samples, just all that kind of stuff. Just get your hands on straight away. Love it.

I’ve never really been a fan of like the books side of things, just love the pracs, so it’s been awesome.

The most challenging aspect would probably be my age, because everyone just is a lot older, and they seem a lot wiser than me, and I feel like I would never be right. But they are all very welcoming and make you feel very comfortable.

My advice to school students would be to just give it a crack. It’s honestly very rewarding and even for females it’s just the best career option.

The support from the other apprentices, especially the female ones, has been great, because they know like what it’s like to be a fresh apprentice, female, in a very male dominated career.

So, they are all supportive and they’re in helping you every step of the way.

My advice to someone wanting to try out for an apprenticeship would be just to apply, give it a go, go out do work experience.

Just do what ever you can to get a leg up to try to get into it, because it’s an awesome career.

My name is Ryan McIntosh and I’m a first year apprentice at Ergon Energy for the Distribution Linesperson.

I love the outdoors and just really like getting out and about with the community.

My family has been throughout Ergon all my life, so I just really saw them doing what they’re doing and really loved it, and then did some work experience and just knew it was the trade for me.

When I did my work experience it was all out in the field seeing what they did day to day. How they started the day, how they ended it, and everything in between. I got to really interact with what they were doing.You got to help, it was just a really great time.

The support in Ergon is great. It’s the teamwork. It’s like everyone has your back and you have theirs.There’s all different aspects of the safety and everyone looks after each other, it’s really good.

The advice I’d give to school leavers is definitely consider a trade. The teamwork, the environment, everything about it is just great. I love it and there’s no real jobs like them. Everyone always counts them out, but I reckon they are a great opportunity.

My Dad worked for Ergon Energy for roughly around 45 years. He’s been through all aspects of the job. Liney, work group leader, and everywhere he’s been he’s loved it, made new friends and the teamwork through that was great. I just really aspire to have that through my career, and I admire what he did and it was a great opportunity for him and now for me.

I’m Melinda. I am an electrical apprentice with Ergon and Energex.I am a mum of two, and that’s who I am.

I started the electrical apprenticeship because I wanted challenge, I wanted change, and I just wanted to be outside and hands on and making a difference. There’s so much diversity every day I don’t know what I’m doing. Like I could be one day in the truck going out bush, or I could be climbing a pole, or I could be in the workshop fixing a transformer. So, the diversity in what I do is awesome.

It is a very male dominated industry that I work in, and I thought I would struggle. Diversity in the industry like I thought oh I’m coming into a man’s world, but it hasn’t been that way. There’s been so much support, like it’s mateship there, respectful, there’s not a question I can’t ask, um helpful, um they push me, they push me every day to do better than what I did the day before.

So, both my children are really proud that I’m doing this. My son is an apprentice also. Ah we fight each day about who is the better apprentice in the house. Obviously, it’s me because I am older and wiser.

Every day is a highlight for me, I love coming to work every day. I can’t pick one particular highlight. I guess I never thought I could climb a pole. I climbed a pole, put a harness on, climbed a pole, I transferred out of an EWP onto a pole. That was probably one of my highlights because I thought I would never do that ever, and I didn’t think I could do that, but I did. And I had great support from my other apprentices helping me do that.

Highlight is just every day coming to work, I love this place, I really do. So, my advice for anyone, any females wanting to get into the electrical industry, start working with Ergon and Energex.

My advice is don’t be scared to try something new, don’t be scared to work outside of the box. If this is what you want, this is what you go for. Don’t be scared that it’s a male dominated area, there is so much support here, and you can do this. If I can do this, anyone can do this.

My name is Hayden Fletcher. I’m an Indigenous Australian from the Bundjalung tribe, which is located in Northern NSW. Some of the things I love about my job is the great people I work with. Um, also another thing is I love to learn something new every day, and everything is a challenge.

So, my name is Kendelle Satour. I’m 18 years old. I am from Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. So, my favourite thing would be meeting new people. Um I don’t usually meet a lot of new people, especially because I am new to Brisbane. Um, and also the support and help that you get off the tradesmen and other apprentices as well. I also love to learn new things, and there’s a lot of new things that you can learn in this trade.

The reason I wanted to work for Ergon Energy and Energex was I heard they were a great company and they were very helpful with their employees.

Advice that I would give to aspiring apprentices is that if they are interested in trying something different, or interested in doing a trade that maybe they haven’t thought about before, then this is one for them, because you learn a lot of different skills and you learn a lot of different things in this trade.

And in year 12, towards the end of it I was lucky enough to get a spot in the introduction to the ESI program with Ergon Energy and Energex, um and that kind of gave me an idea of what I wanted to do then.

I would recommend working for Energex and Ergon Energy because I think that it’s a very good company and they look after their employees, and it’s such a friendly work place to be in.

My name is Riley. I started at Ergon in 2017. This is my fourth job out of high school.

When I started here at Ergon Energy and Energex I had no background in communications, so it was a whole new field for me, which made it more enjoyable for me because I like new challenges.

All the tradesmen and the work group leaders and the trainers are all happy to help, all inviting and encouraging to learn new things, and they’re happy to take new apprentices onboard and really show you the ropes.

I chose a trade, this trade specifically.

After school I didn’t really know what career path I wanted to follow and had pretty good grades and had a fair option of what I could actually do, and I saw this job opportunity come up on Facebook actually, and I applied through there. It’s been the best decision I’ve ever made really.

Day to day as a communications tech for Ergon Energy and Energex varies a fair bit. There’s a large diversity and variety of things you can do every day from maintenance to vehicle installs of our own personal network in our cars, satellite if you go further west, just faults if they occur on the job on powerlines, and um climbing towers.

The first time I climbed a tower was a bit gut wrenching to start with. A bit eerie.But you get used to it after your first two or three climbs, and you start to really enjoy it when you start focussing on the job you actually forget you are up there most of the time.

The advice I’d give to school leavers looking to apply would be to really knuckle down in school, try your hardest, and be someone who can work in a team, because they’re not always looking for the brightest person to work here, but someone who they know can work with others and be adaptable to situations and be able to be trained into the technician that they want you to be.

So, my current role in Ergon and Energex is a Telecommunications Development Lead. And that entails working with our asset team around our broader telecommunications infrastructure and technologies and developing and implementing new solutions into the business.

I’m lucky to have only recently started this role. I’m returning from maternity leave late last year. So, I’ve done a few project roles leading into this one.

So, my background is a communications technician, and so I spent 15 years in the business as a tradesperson and now I’m moving into an office kind of role that suits life a little bit better, with a little bit of flexibility, and allows me to use my technical skills and apply them into the business moving forward.

What I loved about the apprenticeship was just the variety. I completed mine across South West Queensland, so one day you could be in Toowoomba or in the eastern area, or the next day you could be in Charleville on a cattle station. So yeah, a really great opportunity to see different places and different technologies.

Everything from radio to fibre optics, it’s just a really broad mix, yeah, a good mix of different things. So, out of school I thought Uni was going to be the greatest this ever and I did a couple of, or started some double degrees in IT and Sciences, and got a little way through those and realised that I kind of was going to be behind in the world before I even finished those degrees in technology.

Um, being a practical person, farming background, I always thought I could do something, something more and managed to find an avenue that allowed me to get out and do physical things and combine that technical knowledge and IT kind of space as well. So, it’s been a great mix of the two.

I did a business traineeship in some apprenticeship programs as well, so it kind of just cemented that concept that this is a great way to learn and to start a career.