Its the key for my personal and professional growth. Chevening Fellowship essay on networking skills

Hello All,

Please can you provide me with some inputs on comments on my essay on networking? Appreciate your insights..

Give and Take

I believe that networking happens in true sense when there is a Give and Take between the two parties.
I am a firm believer of Mentoring. In my previous organisation I launched a unique mentoring program called "Reverse Mentoring". The here was that the young employees at junior levels would mentor the seniors ( Vice Presidents and Directors) in the organisation. It gave an opportunity for juniors to develop a network and allowed Seniors to get a fresh perspective to challenges. This in turn helped built a solid platform for networking in the organisation.

WeAreTheCity UK is a forum where the women share their inspirational stories. It gives an opportunity for women to connect with each other, search and post jobs etc. This forum was launched by Vanessaa Vallely. I was connected with Vanessa Vallely because of my work in gender Diversity space. When Vanessa decided to launch this forum in India, I immediated connected myself with this network. I regularly use this network to help women showcase their inspirational stories and blog about things they are passionate about. I was felicitated with the Rising Star Award in the first year of launch of this forum in India because of my contribution to the network.

I have also pledged for HEFORSHE Campaign. HEFORSHE is a United Nations initiative to engage men in gender diversity agenda. This has helped me create a network and meet with people who are passionate about human rights and equality. We run intiatives like training undder preveliedged girls and providing them computer education, conductive self-defence classes for women etc.

I believe networking is the key for my personal and professional growth.
If I could become a Chevening Fellow, I would use my existing networks to give back my learinings to the society. I will continue to invest in networking with Chevening Alumni in India and abroad to help find solutions to local issues.

Kavita, these are all socially related networks instead of profession related networks. In fact, you joined these networks like you would the Marines. You did not cultivate the network on a professional level to the point where you had to do actual networking activities such as attending conferences and seminars or meeting other people in order to grow and cultivate a professional network. I admire your principles that let you to become a member of the networks that you indicated. However, these are not useful to your application in the manner that you expect because you do not have any career related / professional networks to reference. This is the reason why you are missing the all too important reference to the question of how this network can help you and the future Chevening scholars in the future. You must create an essay that explains how you started to create your professional network, how you manage to cultivate and grow that network, and how you hope to use it for your benefit and the benefit of the future scholars as well. Right now, this essay is just a listing of organizations that you joined. That does not qualify these to be a valid network along the expectations of the Chevening scholarship program.

Thanks Holt.. Unfortunately these are the only networks I have worked with..

Thanks
Kavita