Education BT Openreach is recruiting trainee engineers, paying £20k to start +London weighting

Some of you will remember that I've been canvassing for job opportunities before; well I've moved to BT now, and that brings an entirely different scale of recruitment!

Openreach are recruiting trainees. In fact, 1500 engineers over the next 12 months or so. There's going to be around 60 vacancies each week, and many of these will be in your local area.

There's great perks to working for BT, not least BT mobile is massively discounted, Infinity is free, BT TV and BT Sport are discounted to almost nothing too, and the pension is fantastic. Outside that, they're also paying £20k a year which for those of you college leavers over the next 6 months would present quite an opportunity. You'll also get industry standard qualifications.

To qualify you just need to be interested, and you need a driving license with less than six points. Oh and it won't hurt if you like the great outdoors, and don't mind climbing a couple telegraph poles

The full information is available here http://btplc.com/Careercentre/careersatbt/openreach/Engineers/index.htm

At the top right click to "Search all jobs" to see what's in your area and apply. If anyone does look to apply, when you go into the system there might be an opportunity to note who referred you. I'd appreciate if you mention me (PM me for human details) but don't feel you have to. I just want to spread the news about the opportunity!

 

Hmmmm, interesting, I might have to have a sit down and see if I can afford a pay cut

 

If my experience of Openreach engineers is anything to go by recently, I hope they are ramping up their training program...

Also, will these be the first of the solely Openreach trainees? (as apposed to BT Openreach)

 

Very tempting. My dads worked for BT for 38 years or so, I'm well tempted to get in the same field.

I'm 32 with 14 years experience in IT support and a bit of electrical. Would I be classed as over-qualified and skipped over?

 

If I apply and I'm successful, can I get FTTC installed on my street, since BT apparently entirely forgot about it when they were doing the entire surrounding area - leaving me stuck with 3Mbit whilst everyone else on the next streets over enjoys fibre?

 

Similar situation here. I could take the pay cut to get out of the desk job, but it'd be a real pain to go through the whole process just to get a 'sorry, overqualified'.
Doesn't look like the roles are live yet, though.

 

Don't knock the desk job. Trust me, I spent the best part of 10 years working in the great outdoors - a couple of winters of not feeling your fingers or toes, getting saturated on a daily basis and ending the working day covered in dirt and grime that only seems to fully come off on your pillow cases and the novelty wares off.

Might just be me, but i'm much happier being indoors, with permanent access to a proper toilet, food and drink facilities and air conditioning.

 

From a man who worked most of his life in the great outdoors I would say it is not all it is cracked up to be especially in the winter.
At 63 I have so many aches and pains which are a direct legacy of working outdoors I would not recommend it. If it is only a part of your job then fine but if it is the bulk then avoid.
when I was young and working in the sun, wind rain and snow I laughed at those who said that that I woul;d reap the painful rewards of an outdoor and very physical working environment, who's laughing now, not me? And I did not earn 20K.

 

hummmm..... I have a desk job working with food, it's not helping my health!
I love tech and that stuff, some ISP experience.

Time for some pondering

 

Goes up to £25k in year 2 which can't be too bad.

Some engineers will later in the year I'm sure, but it's going to be a few months before Openreach becomes a wholly owned subisidiary opposed to a Line Of Business.

I doubt it, in fact it might even help you. There's internal people of all ages in call centres and admin positions all asking about how to apply on the intranet.

Now there's an

They are live? On http://btplc.com/Careercentre/careersatbt/openreach/Engineers/index.htm scroll down to section "5 Decision" drop in the first part of a post code and you'll get it come up.

You'll be the traditional Openreach engineer who will be climbing up poles, installing phone lines, fixing line faults. You'll be able to learn fibre splicing and do pit work as well, all sorts.

Importantly for everyone to note: this isn't an apprentice role, it's a trainee role. At the end of the first year you get a certification which is portable and you're now a (admittedly junior) certified telecoms engineer. No apprentice joke wages, this is a step into a real career with a company which is basically secure: no matter what happens to BT as a whole, Openreach owning such a huge majority of the last mile means it'll never be allowed to fail, and there'll always need to be engineers to fix it.

 

OTE is £25k, not the basic wage.....

 

Review on glassdoor mentions a weight limit for the safety harnesses, I don't know you or your size ( and I don't really wanna either ) but you might want to check it.

 

Heights... potential weight limit... requires driving license...

...bugger.

 

ha, I've not been there long enough to be as weighty as the lifers!!

 

Yes very true, £22933 is the basic wage with 10% OTE.

 

Don't suppose an existing CNCI (copper + fibre) & Fluke cert would be a leg-up? Or do they want to do their own "the BT/Openreach Way" training?

 

I honestly don't know what the certification path will eventually get you but I'm sure things like that will apply to some of the roles.

Openreach also has a Cisco/Network field engineering group so stuff like that would apply there definitely.

 

My long term goal is to become a broadband engineer doing installs etc, Any ideas on how i can increase my changes rather than just applying? And making my CV look clean? Anybody? Anyone?!

Would searching for current employees on linked in and asking for advice or would that be too intrusive?

I honestly probably don’t even get past the “Online Questionnaire part” /facepalm.

 

Well if that's what you want that will be one of your responsibilities with this role. You'd be installing phone and broadband when it's on simultaneous provide. You might not be doing broadband only installs, I'm not sure about that.

Read the website carefully as it tells you what the application process is like. And as they are recruiting for a full year don't worry if it takes a few cycles. You just need to be well presented and customer focused with a great customer manner, and keen to learn. You ought to be fine in other words.

 

I'm an Ex BT telephone engineer (Openreach engineer) and spent many years installing and repairing telephone lines after training.
I did some of my training at a centre in Yarnfield near Stone in Staffordshire although I don't think it's used for that anymore.

You do need a bit of a head for heights, the first time I climbed a full sized pole was a bit scary... It's even worse in the middle of winter when it's freezing cold and pouring with rain....

You do tend to get chased quite a lot by your Level 1 manager for performance.. You also get calls from the control asking you to pick up late appointments, hopefully the customer isn't too grumpy by the time you arrive

I started in the days before multi-skilling and did most of my work either internally or overhead.. I didn't like working on the underground network much, me and manholes didn't get on well.

It's a good job in most respects and you get to meet some nice people..