Please i would need help reviewing some of chevening essay. Thank you
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.
(minimum word count: 50 words, maximum word count: 500 words)
my networking skills can only get better as Chevening scholar
To me, networking is about establishing and maintaining communication and trust in order to achieve set professional goals.
Communication skills such as clarity and concision, confidence, empathy, honesty and respect are key skills that I have learnt to improve over the years by putting myself and my ideas out there without fear of criticism and ready to make notable corrections to achieve my desires and goals
Trust on the other hand is about reliability and availability, values which are conciously and continuously decided upon
The fatest way to send and receive information to a larger population in our world today is through social media (facebook, instagram, whatsapp etc) which i have kept active by posting relevant political, academic and social informations in turn increasing my networking community. I took advantage of my Facebook contacts at the begining of my National youth service year after I graduated university where I expressed that I needed to find a Job placement in my field of study for my NYSC as soon as possible. Luckily for me, i was contacted by somone who had a reliable contact in the prestigious NAFDAC whom I spoke to and worked me through the ropes of getting a Job placement at the agency. I successfully secured a Job at the agency where I commenced my service year. This encouraged me to increase my networking community within the agency, yes even beyond my directorate of posting. I established good rapport with staffs and colleagues at the same time proving to be reliable and trustworthy. This gave me the privilege of establishing reliable and important contacts that had influence in other companies and agencies and as a result I was able to return the favour by helping out others in my pool of contact who needed youth service placement by connecting them with people who had influence in their desired field of study. Also, my good communication skills and trustworthy record allowed me the privilege to help clients who needed important informations about requirements of local and international food and drug registration and just like a positive feed back effect added to my pool of contacts and further increased my networking community as I always ensure to not only establish these important contacts but to also maintain them.
As a part time Job i often work with event planning agencies as an usher in prestigious events. One of the most important for my career path was the Medic West Africa 2017 event, a healthcare platform hosting more than 4,500 healthcare and medical laboratory professionals from across West Africa and 300+ leading international and regional healthcare suppliers, manufacturers and service providers. I was priviledged to meet a lot of important personalites and most imporatantly in my career path. One of which was a CEO of a health care supply company, whom i established contact with after the event as he was impressed yet again with my good communication skills. He gave me his card and i was able to secure an appointment with him at a later date. He was greatly responsible for pushing me to pursue my masters degree as i expressed to him my unwavering desire to further my education as part of my career plan though i had financial challenges. He pushed me to look into scholarships that i was eligible for and take exams that would be required. He also connected me to someone he knew could equally help me to acheive my new goal. Currently i see him as my mentor and have maintained contact with him as I am sure he would also be of great importance to my public health career path in the future and once again like a positive feedback I have also established and maintained contacts by encouraging determined young youths with similar aspirations and goals.
Few months ago, I also registered with a US network marketing company, MAX international, new in Nigeria. They have a product everyone in Nigeria needs and are growing fast. Their main aim is to promote health and income through network marketing. Giving bonuses and commissions for every person you are able to register as well as making profit from retail customers as a whole saler. As an associate with the alliance of other associates in my team we organize seminars to create awareness of the product aswell as the business plan, establishing new contacts as we encourage them into the business, as everyone grows with each contact. Maintaining the contacts was also a crucial part of the business as one person's failure affects your success and one person growth promotes your growth. So constant follow up on your fellow associates was necessary in other to encourage all round progress. Also marketing the products increased my networking pool especially through social media which I see as the fatest medium reaching a greater population. New contacts were also established as my number was dropped with each post and record several people reaching out to me for the product as well as further information on the business plan. Like all network marketing, some were convinced and some were not but the good news is that the people that were convinced were maintained and went ahead to convince others.
Worthy of note also, is that i learnt about the Chevening scholarship through my undergraduate department alumni whatsapp group which i am still currently very active on, when I expressed an interest in masters scholarships. I went ahead to pass the same information to my contacts who had indicated similar interest. One of which was my superior who was interested in PhD and is currently working on pursuing the scholarship once prepared.
What I love most about networking is its positive feedback effect. One successful contact leads to a build up of another successful one leading to even greater achievements in such a way that no one loses. As a chevening scholar my networking skills can only get better as I will establish new important contacts while still maintaining already existing ones as we share important informations crucial to our career paths while building trust to achieve set goals and even further expand the networking poolHolt Educational Consultant - / 14,801 
4780 Ihunanya, the networking skills that you display in this essay as of the amateur nature. It is not going to be able to compete with full-time professionals who have an intricate of career related networks that help them to perform their jobs either through influence or referral natures. The Chevening scholarship committee requires their candidates to have a solid permanent work related network that have been used in important instances of task performance.
As a clarification, social media is not considered an official network of work related contacts. It is not a good idea to mention that you got your first job through social media. Such avenues of referrals, due to the informality of the connection and often impersonal contacts do not make a good impression on the committee.
The best part of this essay that could probably be better edited to suit the prompt requirements would be the paragraph about Max International. That is the closest that you can get to a professional network and it shows some of your ability to create a usable network. I just wish that your networks were not all social media based because that does not really imply that you have the personality to create a network and the ability to cultivate the network as a positive influence in your community and your professional life.
You can also use the portion about NAFDAC and how you help others in your community get job placements in youth service areas. That shows a networking skill that connects with your community in a way. Just edit it to lessen the social media reference. You can instead say that your academic contacts referred you to someone from NAFDAC who assisted you in getting a job with them through an agency. Too much social media influence on a professional career is often frown upon because the contacts made through these channels are often unreliable and questionable.
One of the difficulties that I see in this essay is that you don't really show how your network has helped you develop a stronger professional presence. You also do not have a clear network that you can use as a Chevening graduate or a network that can be of use to other Chevening graduates along with current and future scholars. There is no clear plan on your end with regards how you can use your network in the future. You need to make it clear to the reviewer that you have a specific career path that has been carved out of your network relationships. The idea is that you can have an exchange of networks with the other Chevening scholars past and present. At the moment, you do not portray a career path nor a truly effective and shareable network.
Here is what you can do. Review the other Chevening networking essays that are available for free on this forum. Try to write something similar to what they have written. Note how their professional contacts are of the utmost importance in their networking presentation. Then try to frame your own presentation in a similar manner.
By the way, do you have a current career that is office based or entrepreneurship based? Try to indicate how you have used networking in these instances. Being a networking agent for a company is just not the same thing.
Don't mention WhatsApp in this instance. Do not mention that you learned about Chevening through that network because that is irrelevant to the prompt requirements. Basically, you will need to write a totally new essay. You can only use one section of this essay in the new version, provided you can showcase a community connection (either personal or professional) that can show off your professional networking skills.
By the way, your first 3 presentations in this essay apply more to the leadership essay than the networking essay so you should take those sections out because those are irrelevant to the requirements of the essay.
