Writing FB on my Professional Reference Letter for winning Chevening scholarship

reference letter for UK investment

To whom it may concern--

I am thrilled to write this reference letter with regards to Mr. Mohamed Essam whom I spent two years working with on a daily basis between 2015 and 2017 and literally thrived with him through a lot of work challenges and successes. I was appointed as Project Manager for Egypt's primary telecom operator, Telecom XX, while Mr. Mohamed was leading the regional team delivering support services to my customer. Since I joined YY Co. UK, Mohamed and I are keeping regular contact about both professional and personal stuff via phone and the Facebook.

Starting from 2015 our company was entitled to deliver a MEGA project worth of 60M Euro to provide the largest transmission equipment and IT infrastructure in Egypt throughout an enormous footprint in the country, I was appointed as Project Manager for support services of this project. Arriving at early stages of the project and seeing the amount of dedication, influencing by what I consider one of the best leadership approaches - leading by example - Mohamed has put in place an early strategy and various action plans to construct the required teams and train them on job until the ready for services (RFS) dates. Also, he has contributed with every aspect in establishing an effective relationship with the customer which was promising of a proactive mentality and a great personality. Always being prepared and on-time for meetings was a trademark for him and it became a team mentality.

Firstly, I need to emphasise the fact that not all people can work with multi-national/culture customers, while our newly appointed customer brought up a lot of different characters on board beside the high risks that have been already there, I can say that Mr. Mohamed's understanding and supportive attitude was a critical pillar in managing the customer and dealing with the different situations concerning support/services.

In support field, I witnessed a live example of strong networking with customer starting by ability to attentively listen to understand work problems using comprehensive approaches, being able to analyse and to break down the problem and present solutions in a clear way, going to prioritization based on the best business interests and finally using his communication skills to speak with the right stakeholders, not to forget his neat follow-up till resolution. That was a good exercise not only to stretch our capabilities rather than to show the customer that we as a company were able to apply Effective Relationship Management.

Secondly, in life outside work Mr. Mohamed Essam is highly motivated and self-consistent person always emphasizing life ethics to all his circle, I understand that building a professional circle that can influence someone's long term success needs more than a good leader, striving for win:win scenarios and receptiveness to the feedback from others were the most mature aspects I observed in him.

In conclusion, personally I have no doubt that Mr. Mohamed will deliver added value to UK investment in Chevening scholarship and to his community in Egypt at a large scale, so I strongly recommend him for this prestigious award. A part of my intention here is to see an amazing transformation in his career believing that he already got the bases of a great leader owning his tools for success.

I hope this information will be helpful, should you require any clarification don't hesitate to contact me at my below mail.

Best Regards,

Mohammed, this is a glowing letter of recommendation, if you are applying for a job. You are applying for a Chevening scholarship so the recommendation letter needs to highlight more than just your professional expertise. You have to make sure that the letter is revised to reflect your ability to learn, adjust to various stressful situations, and complete research with little to no supervision. Your referee also forgot to introduce himself at the beginning of the letter. This essay needs to be revised because it is too long. Try to provide all of the required information in 5 complete paragraphs.

This essay makes it sound like he is applying for the scholarship for you instead of merely referring you for the student slot. That is what makes me think that just maybe, this is not written by the author but rather, by you, as a student pretending to be the referee. That will be caught by the reviewer and could result in the cancellation of your application / interview. Revise the essay. Use bullet points to describe your work strengths, without going into too much professional detail and examples. This is all about observations in relation to your performance based on the required data as provided by the automated email that was sent to the referee.

Remember, you cannot upload the letter for him, he has to do all of this himself. This letter is questionable because it is more in the form of an application letter instead of a recommendation letter. Look for examples of Chevening referee letters at this forum and follow those formats when it comes to content. This letter isn't going to work. It is more of an application letter, not a recommendation letter.