Career Opportunity

Utility Services Representative - Customer Services Bureau - SFPUC (1478) (U00039)

Recruitment: REF50602K

Published: April 02, 2025

Apply using SmartRecruiters, the City and County of San Francisco's application portal.

About:

THIS IS A CITYWIDE EXAM.

• Application Opening: April 02, 2025
• Application Filing Deadline: April 09, 2025
• Recruitment ID: CBT-1478-U00039 

San Francisco is a vibrant and dynamic city, on the forefront of economic growth and innovation, urban development, arts and entertainment, as well as social issues and change. This rich tapestry of culture and ideas is sustained by our City's commitment to heighten the quality of life for the diverse population of San Franciscans and residents of the greater Bay Area. Our employees play an important role not only in making our city what it is today, but also in shaping the future of San Francisco.

WHO ARE WE? 
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC)
Headquartered in San Francisco, we have 2,300 employees operating across eight counties serving more than 2.7 million customers in the San Francisco Bay Area – 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

Our Mission: To provide our customers with high quality, efficient, and reliable water, power, and wastewater services in a manner that values environmental and community interests and sustains the resources entrusted to our care.

Our Vision: We are an innovative utility leader, recognized for excellent results in service, safety, stewardship, and inclusiveness.

More about SFPUC: We are an award-winning and industry-leading utilities organization committed to our customers, community interests, and the environment. To learn more about our organization, please visit our website at https://www.sfpuc.org/.

We are proud of our infrastructure and programs, but most importantly, we value our highly qualified and dedicated workforce which ensures that this vision becomes a reality. 

To learn more about working at the SFPUC, visit our career site at https://www.sfpuc.org/about-us/careers-sfpuc

Job Opportunities:
Successful candidates may apply for positions at the Customer Services Bureau (CSB) and other divisions, such as Water Quality, Water Conservation, and City Distribution. The SFPUC's Customer Services Bureau (CSB) is responsible for the billing and collection of utility services and is the primary point of contact for water and wastewater customers. CSB maintains over175,000 water and wastewater service accounts, over 4,000 municipal and retail electric service accounts, and approximately 500 land-lease accounts totaling over one billion in annual revenue. The Bureau is also responsible for meter reading and field investigations, as well as responding to over 200,000 customer inquiries, complaints, and requests for services annually.

The Water Quality Division (WQD) of the SFPUC is responsible for ensuring that the drinking water delivered by the SFPUC meets or exceed Federal and State water quality standards for health. Within WQD, the Cross-Connection Control Program seeks to prevent contamination or pollution of the City's drinking water distribution system by eliminating backflow from customer premises.

Role description

Under general supervision, perform, responsible and specialized journey-level clerical duties in the Customer Service Bureau and Water Conservation, City Distribution, and Water Quality Divisions of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) to establish and maintain consumer Water, Wastewater, and Power services.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include: 

• Receives and processes applications for service installations, including payments for cost of service, deposits for service installation and guarantee deposits; assigns, checks and reviews the work of utility field personnel to assure performance and compliance with orders issued.

• Prepares and maintains reports and documents relative to the establishment, maintenance, billing, collection, and reporting of utility services as well as land leases and permits.

• Discusses consumers ledger accounts with consumers, as necessary; Audits consumer meter records, billings as to service charges, water charges, minimum billing and total billing control to detect and correct discrepancies; maintains related records.

• Calculates resale customer accounts billing, including demand charges; consolidates billing and related procedures; prepares and maintains necessary records.

• Collects, compiles, and analyzes data required for a variety of billing needs and applications for rebates of various water or energy conservation programs and reports.

• Initiates field activities for service turn-ons and shut-offs, meter changes and installation changes for use by field service personnel and yard offices; determines and collects deposits and processes consumer payments using a specialized computer system, as required.

• Receives requests, complaints, and inquiries regarding opening, discontinuing, increasing or installing water or power services, reducing sewer service charge, billing inquiries for water, power, or sewer services.

The 1478 Utility Services Representative will perform other related duties as assigned.

Nature of Work: The nature of work may require the ability to lift objects weighing up to 45 pounds and to operate a 2-way radio to maintain communications with field personnel.

How to qualify

Experience: One (1) year of clerical experience in a customer service, billing or collection department of a utility, bank, department store, Insurance Company or credit agency.

Special Condition: Some positions may require additional qualifications such as special conditions that may differ from the standard minimum qualifications associated with this classification.

Applicants must meet the minimum qualification requirement by the final filing date unless otherwise noted.

Verification: Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and/or experience at any point during the recruitment and selection process. For more information on how to verify your experience or education please click here. 

Note: Falsifying one’s education, training or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.

All work experience, education, training, and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline. Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications. 

Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application. 

Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility, disqualification or may lead to lower scores.

What else should I know?

Selection Procedures: After application submission, candidates deemed qualified must complete all subsequent steps to advance in this selection process, which includes the following:

Utility Services Representative Multiple Choice Examination: (Weight: 100%)

Candidates who meet minimum qualifications will be invited via a separate link to register for a Multiple Choice Examination. The purpose of the Multiple Choice Examination is to evaluate the experience, knowledge, skills and abilities that candidates possess in job-related areas, which have been identified as critical for this position and include, but are not limited to: ability to interpret applicable law, rules, and regulations and apply problem solving techniques to break down complicated problems to find a solution; ability to meet and work with the general public and City department officials in all situations with good judgment and professionalism; ability to create and file new files and records in accordance with office policies, knowledge of office and administrative procedures; ability to type, use computers with basic knowledge of Microsoft Excel, Outlook, and Word, knowledge of chat platforms; knowledge of and ability to interpret City and County regulations, rules and rates for the billing of water and sewer services to consumers; ability to clearly and professionally write reports, procedure manuals, memos, and other correspondence; ability to express information, ideas or facts to individuals or groups effectively; makes clear and convincing oral presentations; listens to and empathizes with others who may have different perspectives; and attends to non-verbal cues and responds appropriately; and ability to compute simple arithmetic and interpret statistics. The Utility Services Representative Exam is a standardized examination, and therefore, test questions and answers are not available for public inspection or review.

Applicants will be given options to schedule the Multiple Choice Examination. Those who do not respond by the established deadline will not be eligible to continue in the examination process and will not be added to the eligibility list resulting from this process. All applicants’ responses to the examination are subject to verification.

A passing score must be achieved on the Multiple Choice Examination in order to continue in the selection process and be placed on the eligible list. Candidates will be placed on the eligible list in rank order according to their final score. Candidate scores on this examination may also be applied to other announcements involving other job titles, when directed by the Human Resources Director. The department may administer additional position-specific selection procedures to make final hiring decisions.

NOTE: Applicants who meet the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed to advance through all of the steps in the selection process.

Certification: The certification rule for the eligible list resulting from this examination will be Rule of the List. Additional selection processes may be conducted by the hiring department prior to making final hiring decisions.

Eligible List/Score Report: A confidential eligible list of applicant names that have passed the civil service examination process will be created and used for certification purposes only. An examination score report will be established, so applicants can view the ranks, final scores, and number of eligible candidates. Applicant information, including names of applicants on the eligible list, shall not be made public unless required by law. However, an eligible list shall be made available for public inspection, upon request, once the eligible list is exhausted or expired and referrals resolved. The eligible list/score report resulting from this civil service examination process is subject to change after adoption (e.g., as a result of appeals), as directed by the Human Resources Director or the Civil Service Commission.

This pool of candidates on the eligible list may be used to fill additional vacancies in this class.

The duration of the eligible list resulting from this examination process will be of 6 months and may be extended with the approval of the Human Resources Director.

To find Departments which use this classification, please see https://sfdhr.org/sites/default/files/documents/Forms-Documents/Position-Counts-by-Job-Codes-and-Department-FY-2023-24.pdf

Terms of Announcement and Appeal Rights:

Applicants must be guided solely by the provisions of this announcement, including requirements, time periods and other particulars, except when superseded by federal, state or local laws, rules or regulations. [Note: The correction of clerical errors in an announcement may be posted on the Department of Human Resources website at https://careers.smartrecruiters.com/CityAndCountyOfSanFrancisco1/

The terms of this announcement may be appealed under Civil Service Rule 110.4. Such appeals must be submitted in writing to the Department of Human Resources, 1 S Van Ness Avenue, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103-5413 by close of business on the 5th business day following the issuance date of this examination announcement. Information concerning other Civil Service Commission Rules involving announcements, applications and examination policies, including applicant appeal rights, can be found on the Civil Service Commission website at http://sfgov.org/civilservice/rules.

What else should I know?

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:

• Information About The Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview
• Equal Employment Opportunity
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Veterans Preference
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

HOW TO APPLY

Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process. Visit https://careers.sf.gov and begin the application process. 

• Select the “Apply Now” button and follow instructions on the screen 

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com). 

Applicants will receive a confirmation email from notification@careers.sf.gov that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received.

Exam Analyst Information: If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact the exam analyst at Linda Muir at LMuir@sfwater.org.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.