Bringing people together - Chevening scholarship advice on the networking essay.

Chevening is looking for individuals with strong networking skills

, who will engage with the Chevening community and influence and lead others in their chosen profession. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your networking skills, and outline how you hope to use these skills in the future.

Personally, networking is comprised of building relationships with people as I go through my career. I find it very deserving and necessary creating a very strong network for the success of any career. While at school, many students after class always left the study rooms but I always opted to stay behind and make some consultations from the tutors so as to have a clear line of sight of where I stand and were I desire to be in my profession and it's through this that I got my first training opportunity in 2016 through a recommendation of one of my lecturers to Uganda National Roads Authority.

In 2019 after my last semester around May, I wondered how I was going to fit into the working world as we awaited the graduation ceremony and the first thing that came into mind was the internet. I was able to find a couple of information of the available Surveying companies which I visited and luckily got accepted into Spot Surveyors company. I acquired lots of experience that got me the confidence to start seeking for greater options. I graduated in December 2019.

On acquisition of my transcript, I started to apply for various jobs but did not get called for any. Luckily enough on one of the alumni functions at my high school, I got an opportunity to speak to many friends of mine and so happened that one of them had the same career path as I. He offered me a placement at National forestry Authority which I worked as an assistant surveyor and while at the authority, we developed a culture called "Kabokisi" which translates as a piggy-bank and was aimed at creating an investment and social club. And my great desire for soccer prompted me to join the NFA soccer team for the corporate league competitions which are annually held between all corporate companies in Uganda and this gathered various professionals and I got to interact with many people and this helped me create a wider clientele as many tasked me to carry out their cadastral surveys for their Property. From so doing, I got so much experience and hence credible enough to join the Institution of Surveyors of Uganda (local governing body) which has supported my continuous career development through CPDs.

Meanwhile, I always update my social pages like LinkedIn which connects me to professionals across the globe from which I get opportunities to attend their seminars and conferences. With all the experience I achieved, I was able to start on my process for getting certification from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, UK which is still underway.

I am now part of the Southern Rotaract club of Kampala that brings together people of different professions and locations and this has consequently widened my network which I believe to extend to the Universities that I am going to attend through joining the sports clubs and other professional clubs and attend seminars and conferences to learn and share ideas.

Nope. This is not going to work. There is no professional network represented. You are not even doing a good job of representing the foundation of your networking skills. There is a lack of academic tone in this written interview. You are writing the essay as if you are merely addressing a friend instead of an interviewer. Change the format. Use an academic tone. That is always best for this type of essay.

Why did your lecturer recommend you to the Uganda National Roads Authority as a trainee? Did you come away with any career contacts based on your time as a trainee there? How did you build the contacts? Do they still exist? How have they helped you in terms of advancing your career?

The second paragraph is a throw away. Delete it. There is no reference of value in terms of networking in that presentation. Develop the National Forestry Authority networking discussion instead. Expand it. Remove the reference to social media pages. The reviewer will not be impressed by non-physical contacts. These are never considered verifiable and useful contacts in the international scene.

Hi @Kawalano
Allow me to give my point of view for your essay. I think its good to see that you have gained a lot of achievements but I guess you got distracted with numerous examples there. I think you can stick to 1-2 examples but you have to go deep in explaining them. Remember to clearly answer the question on how you can engage and influence your network, what method did you use to build that network, etc. Goodluck!

I think your miss out the importance of networking. Kindly show how you network with people and how you utilize this skill for your/community benefit.