Chevening is looking for individuals that will be future leaders or influencers in their home countries. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to support your answer.
"You can lead a horse to water trail, but you can't make it drink"
Being a strong believer that leaders are made and not born, I've strived to develop the leader within me in my personal and professional life. Embracing my failure of not qualifying through the youth ranks as a professional footballer, my passion drove me to become a youth football coach. My dream is to develop young talent who can represent the country at an International stage. Today, I embark on a journey
After gaining experience coaching non-league teams, I was granted a coaching opportunity at the Paris Saint Germain football Academy.Working with children across age groups (5-19) at the academy, has brought about great challenges, requiring me to analyze, be creative and constantly push myself to improve. Using video analysis, I developed a performance chart that identified key attributes among players in respective age groups, setting up a ranking system to rate their technique, power and skill. This formed a foundation for constant improvement and encouraged healthy competition. For instance, while coaching an under-10 age group, we spotted an eight year old boy, Viraj, who played football with the speed and technique of a 12 year old. However, our performance matrix outlined that his technical awareness levels were relatively lower and this served as an impediment in achieving his maximum potential. I was wary about pushing him over the brink by exposing him to a higher age group so I developed a tailored training regimen to help him build his positional and off-the-ball awareness through effective drills and real game situations, hence making him use his tactical acumen. The results began to surface after a couple of months when his perseverance and stellar performances in local tournaments were spotted by scouts from Benguluru-FC, a National league club. Today, it is with great satisfaction I'd like to note that, Viraj is playing in the Boca Juniors League, an affiliate of prestigious South American club Boca Juniors, representing his club.
Striking a healthy balance between passion and profession, have helped hone my interpersonal skills, whilst chasing my dream. Working as an analyst for HSBC, I was solely tasked end-to-end project execution of creating a dashboard for the US market that offered key stakeholders a single solution to view important parameters across varied products, to aid their business decisions. Having seen my command in project execution, I was given an opportunity to lead and support a team of analysts from several countries in Europe and Latin America. Since, leading a project required diligent work with prioritization of tasks, I laid out a work flow chart to help the team finish within stipulated timelines. I addressed issues independently and encouraged suggestions from my team to augment the user interface of the dashboard, which eventually, were successfully implemented to the final product. My effort was well appreciated by corporate leaders from various markets and it also helped in obliterating 57% of the redundant reports present.
An amalgam of exposure has helped me to be constantly improving. I look ahead to the challenges of tomorrow with utmost zeal and to make the difference
Vignesh, I know that most applicants try to use a quote to catch the attention of the reviewer. It is always an effective "hook" tool that, when used properly, can keep the reviewer interested in your work. The problem that I have with your quote is that it does not have a strong connection with the rest of the essay. What is the connection of leading the horse to the water but not being able to force it to drink?" Normally, I would have expected this quote to have been followed by a story or anecdote about an obstacle that tried to hinder either your leadership or influencing skills. None of those factors appear to have been hindered in the essay so I am wondering why you decided to place the quote there. Do you care to elaborate? I am really unable to find the connection as of now.
As for the rest of your essay, I am absolutely sure that you were trying to aim for a story about influencing people when you told the story of Viraj. The thing is, the influence part of the story was not as strong as it should have been. It was more of a leadership while being member of a team that was highlighted in the story. What we need in this essay, is an example of both your ability to influence people, either in decision making, work related activities, or something along similar lines. Hopefully you have a story that can accomplish this.
In my opinion, your work experience with HSBC offered you the opportunity to exercise both your leadership and influencing skills. It is the perfect example of the kind of scenario that would sit well with the reviewer since it covered your work experience with a notable international firm and allowed you to personify an example of leadership in the workplace. I believe, that with more paragraph development, you can better use the HSBC story instead of the football experience you related to describe how you embody the leadership and influence qualities that Chevening looks for in its masters degree scholarship candidates. Perhaps you would like to consider building your essay solely around that experience instead?
Vignesh, I must say, I enjoyed reading your essay, it's written pretty well.
However, I got a little bit confused on the main goal of the essay, in the body of the essay, it seemed to have lost focus, let me just say it went out of way from the supposed to be origin of the essay. The transition of the essay may be good but not really supporting the flow of the paragraph, you have to make sure that the sentences remain focused and has only one straight path to get to.
I understand that you are able to answer the prompt and your essay will stand out in the admissions desk, I'm not saying that you are sure to get granted the scholarship, I wish I van tell you that, what I suggest is go and proof read your essay maybe one or few more times and try to tweak the second paragraph to creat a good flow, transitioning to your balance of career and your passion.
I hope to see the revised essay here on EF so we can help you further.
