The council is seeking two high-school leavers to take up two-year cadetships at the council.
They will be paid $32,000 annually and move around council departments, spending eight to 12 weeks in each one.
Chief executive Leanne Mash said except for at its swimming pools, the council had a lack of young employees.
"Local government has an image problem. Particularly, people under 30 don’t realise what we do. It’s not always apparent looking in.
"I’ve noticed in New Zealand and Australia, when kids are growing up, they want to be a fireman or a teacher or an astronaut. No primary school kids are thinking ‘Oh I want to be in local government’."
The idea was partly to bring a "vibrancy" to council, she said.
"Young people have a particular style of working."
Jobs directed at high school leavers were becoming rarer, Ms Mash said.
"Now there’s such a focus on higher education, which is great, but it’s not for everybody."
It was "very likely" the cadets would get a job at the end of the two years, she said.
"It would be lovely if one part really clicked with them. Whether it be tourism and marketing stuff, building roads or land planning.
"If they’re talented and we’ve gone through the effort of training them, then we have a training budget to support them through polytech training or something like that."
The idea came from discussions with previous mayor Tony Lepper, she said.
No other New Zealand council had a similar programme as far she was aware.
"And we could perhaps partner with other councils so they [the high school leavers] could, say, have two weeks in Dunedin."
The council wanted candidates to supply a short video.
The council had received only a few applications so far, but was expecting more after school exams finished and for many to wait until just before the December 9 cut-off date, Ms Mash said.
