'As a student I built and maintain strong network' -- Networking Skills, Chevening.

Hi everyone, could you please help with editing my essay?

Chevening is looking for individuals with strong networking skills, who will ...

As a student I built and maintain strong network with students, teaching stuff as well as with participants of different events and the sport club I was attending. It was my networking skill that helped me to change and improve my career prospective and got me in to my current profession that I am passionate about.

During my studentship at --- State University, where I studied Linguistics, I was working as a translator for foreign ICT Specialist, invited to our university to install donated PC by Canadian government, I got involved in setting up the computer lab. Noticing my increasing interest in IT and rapid ability to learn, he recommended to learn ICT as a profession and left several IT books before leaving. After studying the literature, few months later I started teaching computer classes at the same lab. I kept in touch with the specialist and often was getting recommendations improving my skills.

Being now confident with my skills, I applied for an IT position with international organisation, indicating the IT specialist as a reference. I have got the job being advised that along with my technical skills I have received excellent recommendation that was decisive in my hiring.

Understanding that networking cannot only be used for own gain but to exchange knowledge, experience, referrals , support and encouragement I am sharing relevant information with people who might benefit from it and always getting back to ones that contact me for any advice or flavor. Having that in mind I was happy to assist one of my previous colleagues when he asked to help with the technical part of setting up a conference for his private business.

It was that understanding as well when I helped one of my classmate to improve his technical skills by providing training and mentoring after he contacted me for support. Later I connected him with my contacts at University of -----, where he works now as a System Administrator.

Becoming Chevening Scholar, along with the degree and knowledge will give me an opportunity to meet students from different countries and cultures with similar ambitions where I could build an alumni network with likeminded professionals from different areas of expertise. This would be an opportunity to learn from my course mates and share my own experience with future Chevening awardees by actively participating in Scholars conferences and online discussions. I believe that utilizing the network will also benefit me further advancing my career in becoming a valuable expert in area of ----- in my country as well as other scholars....

You don't have a network if you have only one friend who happens to work in IT and inspired your dreams and ambitions. That is called a mentor, not a network contact. Network contacts are created through your participation in various school organizations, seminars, and workplace colleagues. Needless to say, you interpreted the response to the prompt in the wrong way. That is not to say that your contact experience was wrong, it is just wanting in terms of proving that you are capable of creating networks and contacts and that you can manage to sustain such an important circle of work alliances.

Do you remember working with any organization and meeting people who have been vital in the progress of your academic or professional career? How many of them do you have? Talk about how you created these contacts, managed to work with them, and maintain them to this very day as potential useful people in your quest for a better career.

A network is composed of people who helped you achieve certain objectives that you have set either for yourself or your organization. Please tell me you have these types of people to talk about in your essay. If you don't, then you have a problem with your application.

I do indeed have quite a large network of people from my previous jobs, training courses and conferences I attended, course mates and referrals.
I just wanted to bring couple of examples to stay withing 500 words.

Is it worth editing the essay above or would it be better just to start from a scratch ?

It would be better to start from scratch. In instances when your draft essay is person and activity specific, it is harder to edit the content. There is a larger degree of difficulty in trying to find the right parts of the paragraph to insert information in. There is also the problem of revising the already existing paragraphs to reflect the new message or theme of the essay.

Before you start your new essay, let me offer you some advice. Do not try to represent all of your contacts in the essay. Learn to choose only the important contacts you have. Make sure that the way you made the contact is well represented in the essay. You will need to explain:

1. What the organization you were affiliated with at the time is;
2. Why it was necessary to make this contact;
3. How you made the contact;
4. The result of your negotiations with the contact;
5. The end result of your objective.

Represent those information by presenting one or two of your most valued contacts. Then explain how you plan to use those contacts as a Chevening scholar then after, as an alumna, helping other students.

Here is my second version of the essay, hope it is better. Couldn't post it as had some issue due to the remoteness of our region.

Firag, I hope that the reason behind the lack of actual name behind the organization is that you are just protecting the name against online problems it might create. Please make sure that you refer to the organization by name in your final, private version of the essay. Without it, there is no way the scholarship committee can verify your claims regarding your networking skills. I guess that this essay will suffice for your purpose. It is obvious that you do not have the necessary professional network in place yet to share with the reviewer. I suspect that you will be able to develop that over time should you win the scholarship and you will do it through the existing network of other scholars before you. I suggest that you make that clear in your essay so that the reviewer will know not to expect any professional contact references in your essay.

Thank you Mary again for comments.
I have contacts with different people from our local government officials, former co workers, people from different countries I lived, worked had training, etc. I am having problem putting it all to words on the paper ):

Mary, could you please comment on my essay about leadership from the link above?

Try writing a totally new networking essay based on your professional contacts Firag. I have a sense that we might be able to make it more useful to your application than the one you currently have. I know that it can be difficult to put it into writing but you have to try. You won't be alone in the process. We will all be here to help you make the essay as perfect as it can be. I for one will be willing to work with you on it for as long as it takes. Just remember to start a new thread for it. As for your leadership essay, I don't see any link next to your name on the thread so I can't find it to read and comment on. Double check your profile and make sure that the link icon is active. I don't think it is active at the moment. I'll be more than happy to review it for you once I find the link to it.

I will try one more time today. Could you please suggest the structure of it?

Could you possible check this one as well for me?
essayforum.com/scholarship/take-leadership-influence-question-72327/

Firag, networks are created over time by attending seminars, training, educational and technological exchanges, and other similar activities. Did you participate in any or all of these? If you did, then explain how you managed to create your professional network using those methods. Try to develop the essay in a manner that explains how your network has helped you professionally and how you expect it to help you in the future. Then connect your networking skill to Chevening by explaining how you hope to share your network with the future scholars and how you look forward to further improving your own network with the help of the scholarship foundation as well. The networking essay is all about extending your circle of influence to a world where the people you might mentor in the future can also benefit from your connections in the professional world.

By the way, I read the other essay already and it looks good to go. You can use it anytime you want to. Nothing more to be fixed there and the grammar is alright. It is acceptable and shows off your English writing skills to be the best of your abilities. No need to worry about it.

thank your for reviewing my other essay. I still need to reduce it by 50 words not to exceed the limit.
I am writing another essay trying to implement all suggestion you made.