Becoming a Chevening scholar would widen my network and an opportunity to meet various experts

Hi all, I'm still working on my networking essay for Chevening application. Any feedback would be appreciated. Many thanks!

A COLLABORATION THROUGH NETWORKING

As a professional and a future leader, the capability in networking is a must. Nevertheless, gaining a proper skill of networking is not an easy task. It is easy to meet new people in events and to exchange name cards, but it is difficult to hone the benefit from the newly created network. Being an employee in a consulting company has given me a chance to develop my networking skill. I have learned how to develop a network while giving a positive impact for both me and my network.

A few months ago, my company decided to create an advisory line of work with purpose to help non-profit organizations through analytics. The new line of work was very interesting for me that I wanted to volunteer. It was an opportunity to give an impact for society using my expertise in analytics field. The first task to contribute towards the advisory mission was to find a suitable non-profit organization for partnership. Ideally, the organization should own data to be analyzed. After spending two weeks to search potential organizations with the desirable criteria, I managed to find a suitable organization. It was an online crowdfunding platform which pools the fund for patients who were unable to afford their medical bills. The goal of the organization was to enable those less fortunate to access a decent healthcare. My next action was to contact the founder to arrange a face-to-face meeting with the team. During the meeting, I gave a proper introduction about myself and my company while explaining the proposition to improve their quality of works using data analytics. Thankfully, they were interested and agreed with our advisory proposal.

Following the agreement, my team thoroughly worked on their data. We did the data audit which helped them to have a view on the health of the data so that they can improve the quality accordingly. We also presented actionable insights for their marketing strategy in the form of tailored marketing based on the behavioral segmentation of the donors. They were impressed with the result and were eager to apply the solutions into their system. Maintaining this type of relationship is not an easy thing to do. As a result, I need to keep in touch with them so that we can have ongoing collaboration. For instance, we are currently exploring a way on how to enhance the customer engagement on their platform through a recommendation engine.

Conclusively, I believe that becoming a Chevening scholar would widen my network so that I can reach out to help more organizations with data-driven potential which have an aspiration to benefit society. Additionally, being a Chevening scholar would also give me an opportunity to meet various experts which will enrich my capabilities in solving real-world problems through analytics.

@maknae33
Dear Natasya,
It's a good draft.But as a reader, I expect that you will talk about influencing skill instead of networking. My suggestion is you need to add more examples of the networking you have developed that give you many benefits.

Hope you find the suggestion useful

@bellachyntia
Hi bella thanks for your willingness to give my essay some feedbacks. I'm a little bit confused about your suggestion, this essay is answering the networking question and I should answering it using my influencing skills not networking skills?

Natasya, this is not a networking essay. This is an example of a work ethic essay. I would say that this could very well have been a part of your leadership and influencing skills essay. A networking essay requires you to show how your training at the office has prepared you for your current and future work requirements. These include seminars attended, training you were involved in, and mentoring programs you were a part of. All of these experiences should relate to examples within your workplace when you had to call upon the help of these organizations or individuals to help resolve work related issues. It would be even better for your essay if you can explain that your original contact spun off into a new contact that remains active in your network today. The essay should exemplify how you manage to engage the help of those outside of your company in order to complete your company related tasks. This essay does not do that. Read the other networking examples here. That should give you a better idea of how to correct your essay.

@Holt
I admit creating the networking essay is very hard. Thanks for your comments, now I have a clearer view about how to do the networking essay.