Huge opportunity to connect with aspiring young leaders from different parts of the world

Networking Essay - Chevening Scholarship

Hello All,

I have drafted the networking essay of Chevening scholarship. Kindly review and provide feedback. Thanks in advance.

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.

I had the opportunity to complete my high school education from Muscat, Oman. That experience exposed me to people belonging from different cultures and ethnicities. Interacting with different nationality people provides a huge spectrum to grow and establish relationships, which can be used for personal and professional growth if maintained appropriately.

I capitalized on this opportunity and remained connected with all of the connections I made in Oman after moving back to Pakistan for graduation in 2009. Being landed a first job which highly incorporates conducting sales meetings and maintaining strong business relationships with all the current and prospective clients, I was given a vast opportunity to utilize my networking skills in the most effective manner. While working at 'company name' in 2015, I was assigned a project which required acquiring a quotation from the sub-contractor of an international company. I found out that the subcontractor of the company for the South Asia and the Middle East region was operating in Oman. I was lucky enough to find one of my class-mate working with the same sub-contractor. To my manager's delight, my connection in Oman helped me by offering a much-discounted quote. This was only made possible through my networking skills. The management of the company was pleased with my effective networking and assigned me with the responsibility of dealing/communicating with all the sub-contractors from the Middle East region.

Currently, I am working as a pre-sales engineer and a major part of my job is to meet clients and pitch sales ideas to them. Strong communication and interpersonal skills are the backbone of a sales team. The key in being a sales engineer not only lies in have sufficient technical knowledge but also strong professional networking. Maintaining a healthy rapport with my clients has throughout helped me to win various projects for the company.

Networking should not be restricted to professional life. It is always essential to be involved in different social activities happening around. I actively participate in various activities held by my university for the alumni, till date. It was during a social event where I interacted with one of my batch-mate and he informed me about the Chevening scholarship program in the UK.

During my research about the Chevening scholarship for Pakistanis, through different social media platforms, I found out that there are still many prospective students who are unaware of this prestigious opportunity. By becoming a successful Chevening scholar, I look forward to utilizing my social connections in establishing an online platform preferably on a social media website, where all the current and former Chevening scholars from Pakistan can answer the queries of prospective students and share their Chevening experiences.

The prestigious Chevening experience will provide me with huge opportunity to connect with aspiring young leaders from different parts of the world where we all can motivate each other and contribute towards building a better future for our countries.

Rahma, your references with regards to your networking skills and opportunities are too vague. You need to have more solid presentations. That means, you tell the reviewer what the position of your classmate was at the office of the sub-contractor and if it was this relationship that led to the big discount that your company received. Was he the one who authorized the discount? Or was he able to network you with someone in the company with whom you negotiated the discount? Be specific. Show the reviewer how the network worked in this instance in order to give a clear picture of the benefits you received from it and how.

Next, when you mention that someone told you about the Chevening scholarship, that person better be a Chevening alumna whose name you can mention in this essay as a reference / part of your network. This will show a pre-existing Chevening network for you, which can be beneficial to you in the future and will help to illustrate how you can also offer your network for the benefit of Chevening and its future scholars. This is of vital importance because this responds to the question as to how you plan to use these skills in the future, knowing that you will need to be mentor to future scholars.

Hello Rahma155,

Here are some possible corrections:

which is highly incorporating
the company in the
lies in having

Hi Rahma

I think the changes that you made after the reviewer comments have made your essay much stronger. Well done. The only thing that I can say is that you now have one big, strong paragraph (paragraph 2), and all the others are quite short in comparison. You can consider combining paragraph 4 and 5 into one bigger paragraph, since it deals with the same topic of using social connections to promote career opportunities.

Just a suggestion.

Regards