A Property Officer from South Pacific Region is trying to apply for an Australian Aid Scholarship

AUSAID SCHOLARSHIP QUESTION

Hi, I'm an interested applicant currently employed as a Property Officer from South Pacific Region trying to apply for an Australian Aid (AusAid) Scholarship to undertake a Master Degree but having problem answering this question. (Maximum 214 words required). Prior to my appointment as a Property Officer I worked as a Claims Clerk. My answer don't seem to make good sense to me.

Scholarship Question
How have you contributed to solving a challenge and to implementing a change or reform in your organization or community? (Be specific and include: what aspect/s of your leadership knowledge, skills and practices, you consider to be well established and effective; which people or organizations you worked with to solve the problem; and what creative methods you used were used to solve the problem.)

My Written Answer
Before my appointment there was no filling system, leases were outdated, return on investment was low and client satisfaction was poor. One year into my appointment tenant's satisfaction increased through my ability to delegate jobs and fast track incomplete jobs while I seek to identify issues, understand everyone's interest and propose solutions with Maintenance Supervisors raising maintenance worker's performances and ironing out issues. My pro-activeness and passion to evaluate and propose ideas influenced the General Manager to review leases rates triggering growth from K2.4 m to K3.956 m, vacancies reduced from 3 to 1 yearly whilst indigenous SME grew from 15 to 23. Good relationship with tenants helped me reduce rental arrears from K500 000 to K100 000 monthly. To be effective, I upgraded my qualification with a bachelor degree. Identifying a challenge, laying out a vision, strong courage, persistence, teamwork and passion helped me plan, focus, implement and succeeded.

Douglas, you need to indicate what your appointment was all about. There should also be a background reference to the problem you had to deal with. It is not a good idea to discuss the problems and contributions in a vague and collected manner as you are doing now. It will be better if you can focus on a single, serious problem that you faced in the company and then discuss how that issue was resolved. You are appropriately displaying your problem solving skills in this essay, which is the whole point of the question. The reviewer is also interested in the results of your problem solving prowess, but he is more interested in learning how you handle problems in stressful situation. How do you manage to resolve a conflict so that the community would end up better off than when it first started? There is no real sense of the method by which you developed these skills because your discussion tends to merely gloss over all of the pertinent information, almost as if you are afraid to or you do not wish to discuss the matter. An essay statement in response to this is only effective when you thresh out the discussion within the word requirements, otherwise, it is weak and not particularly impressive. That is the situation that this current response is facing but, it could be improved with proper editing and content revision.