Many people are granted a Residence visa without having a job offer in NZ. Also, it does not matter if you have not previously been to NZ, and don't have any contacts there so far, as long as you have done enough research to know about the country, and how your particular industry works in NZ. You would be expected to have found out about particular companies, and approached them to ask about any future vacancies.
Your application will be checked out thoroughly by the CO - that is, all your evidence will be verified by asking other people to confirm it. When that is all done (which can take months), then the CO will call you to arrange an interview with you.
It is how the CO is impressed by your answers in the interview that make him/her decide what visa you ought to be offered. The interview is designed to find out what you know about how things work in NZ, both in your career and in society in general, to see if you would be likely to impress an employer and be quickly offered a job, and also that you are prepared to manage your life efficiently, like sorting out housing, medical care, school for children if any, etc., without being distracted by those things from your work - this is all known as 'employability'.
It is VERY much worthwhile to check out thoroughly the thread of old interview questions (link below), and make sure you know how you would answer.
If the the CO is fully satisfied, then Residence is offered. If the CO has doubts about aspects of your preparedness, you can be offered an SMC JSV (also known as deferred Residence), which gives you the right to nine months in NZ to find skilled work, and if you do, you get the Residence you originally applied for. If you appear to the CO to lack most of the necessary information, you will be refused. Here is the official information about the CO interview.
http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/43652.htm And here is an old thread with questions from the interviews. (The regulations have been the same for a long time, so don't be concerned that the early posts date back several years.)
http://www.enz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=27398
Your family circumstances have NO bearing on the matter of getting offered SMC JSV, or not. The whole point of the SMC JSV is for the main applicant to go alone and concentrate all their time and resources on getting a skilled job. As soon as they do that and get their deferred Residence, then their partner and any children who were on the original SMC application get their Residence, too, and can join them.
This may seem harsh, but it was a rule change in response to what had become an even harsher problem. Under the old regulations, when a family was allowed to go with a JSV holder, they would find a home, maybe the partner, on an open visa, would find a job, and the children would settle into school. But if, in nine months, the JSV holder had NOT got a skilled job, they would all be told to leave the country. Of course, it was a heartbreaking thing for this group of people, having to tear up the life they had begun to make for themselves, and even worse if, despite all warnings, they had sold up their home in their original country and now had nothing to go back to. That is why the law is now as it is.
The only way for your partner to get to NZ while you are there would be to apply for a Visitor's Visa in her own right, but it is very unlikely that it would be granted, for the same reasons as above.