chevening essay on networking

The Scholarship Mentor

📚 Step 3: Chevening Scholarship Networking Essay

Hi friends,

Our journey towards securing the prestigious Chevening Scholarship continues, and we're now on Step 3 of our six-part series in the Chevening Scholarship Essay Writing Guide.

Part 1: Crafting an Award-Winning Networking Essay

The Networking essay is your opportunity to showcase your ability to connect, collaborate, and engage with a diverse network of individuals. Here are some tips and an outline to help you write an award-winning Networking essay:

Tips for Writing a Networking Essay:

Outline: You should follow the standard rule of writing an essay.

Introduction

Start with a Captivating Anecdote: Begin your essay with an introduction paragraph that introduces the whole point of the paragraph, whether it is about leadership, networking, etc.

Provide examples in the Body : Add a real-life example that illustrates your networking prowess. Showcase a memorable interaction or collaboration that highlights your effective networking skills that have brought a change or something positive.

Highlight Diversity: Emphasize the diversity of your network. Discuss connections with people from various backgrounds, cultures, and professions. Diversity shows your ability to bridge gaps and work effectively with a wide range of individuals. It is good to show that your networks involve, professionals, experts, and politicians (if possible), Academics (such as professors, writers, researchers, alumni, or students), and volunteers (such as community, social, etc.).

Impactful Connections: Share stories of how your network has helped you achieve your goals or make a positive impact in your community or field of study. It is better to use the STAR method to write your examples. Provide concrete examples of how your connections have opened doors or provided valuable insights. To learn more about the STAR method click here .

Demonstrate Reciprocity: Networking is a two-way street. Describe how you've contributed to your network by providing support, mentorship, or assistance to others. Please do not write examples about the things you got or achieved through your networks .

Conclusion: Summarize your leadership journey and its significance.

Seek Feedback: Don't hesitate to ask your friends, mentors, or colleagues to review your essays. Their perspectives can provide valuable insights. You can book consultation sessions with me for one hour or more at www.sirathaidary.com or you can submit your application for review on the website.

Learn more: You can enroll in my essay writing course which I brought a huge discount. Check it out here .

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Stay tuned for our next issue, where we'll delve into the Study Plan essay. Crafting a compelling study plan is essential for your Chevening Scholarship application, and we'll provide you with expert guidance to make it shine.

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• Sep 17, 2020

Part 2: Applying for the Chevening Scholarship (Essay Tips)

Updated: Oct 14, 2020

This serves as Part 2 of the Chevening Tips, in the event that you would like insight in as far as what is Chevening and an overall insight on what is required to apply, kindly have a look at Part 1: Applying for the Chevening Scholarship (FAQ).

Applying for the Chevening Scholarship Series

Three Years a Charm: Becoming a Chevening Scholar

Part 1: Applying for the Chevening Scholarship (FAQ)

Disclaimer: Note that the advice given here below is my own personal opinion and not that of the Chevening Secretariat or the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office .

When applying for the Chevening Scholarship, you will be required to submit four written essays, each a minimum of 100 words and a maximum of 500 words.

Quick Tips on how to write your 4 Chevening Essays:

When writing your essays, use the STAR and SMART approach.

Ensure that you cover the bases in each of your essays, mentioning the most important elements.

Your essays have to be truthful, concise, and well-written.

Ensure that you tell a story when writing your essays, you can add bullet points to list achievements and highlight career goals however there should be a flow.

Ensure that any stranger can make out what you are trying to say, making it clear what you are talking about. When making references to data or situations from your home country, be sure to mention the country's name.

Refrain using words like our and their, and opt to name what you are talking about.

Use Grammarly to spell check your work and ensure that your grammar is correct.

STAR Approach - Derived from Muse

Situation: Set the scene and give the necessary details of your example.

Task: Describe what your responsibility was in that situation.

Action: Explain exactly what steps you took to address it.

Result: Share what outcomes your actions achieved.

SMART Approach - Derived from CFI

Specific: Well defined, clear, and unambiguous.

Measurable : With specific criteria that measure your progress toward the accomplishment of the goal.

Achievable: Attainable and not impossible to achieve.

Realistic: Within reach, realistic, and relevant to your life purpose.

Timely: With a clearly defined timeline, including a starting date and a target date. The purpose is to create urgency.

Four Essay Topics

Leadership and Influence

Chevening is looking for individuals who 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. - Question as per the Chevening Website

Using the methods explained above (STAR AND SMART Approach), ensure that you speak on the times you have depicted leadership traits, the leadership positions you have occupied and the times you have displayed a position of influence. These can range from managerial positions, leadership in organizations (NGO's included), or in your day-to-day life. In addition, you can touch on what leadership ambitions you have and how this ties back to your community.

It is important to ensure that the examples are impact-driven and not only for self-gain.

Chevening is looking for individuals with strong professional relationship-building skills, who will engage with the Chevening community and influence and lead others in their chosen profession. Please explain how you build and maintain relationships in a professional capacity, using clear examples of how you currently do this, and outline how you hope to use these skills in the future. - Question as per the Chevening Website

Writing your networking essay is primarily about showing clear examples of the relationships you have built, how they were established, and how you have managed to maintain them. In addition, highlight how these said relationships have been instrumental in your personal development and the work that you do. Ensure that you are able to glean from every example the skill acquired and how these skills will be useful to you in the future as a possible Chevening scholar. This essay, in essence, is to show that you have the ability to use the opportunities given to you in a tangible and impactful manner.

Career Plan

Chevening is looking for individuals who have a clear post-study career plan. Please outline your immediate plans upon returning home and your longer-term career goals. You may wish to consider how these relate to what the UK government is doing in your country. - Question as per Chevening Website

This essay provides an opportunity for you to layout an immediate 2-year plan, and a 5 to 10-year plan. Your plans need to be attainable and should speak to your ambitions as laid out in your career plan. The most important tip for when writing out your career plan, is to ensure that when you touch on your professional experience, it not be written as though it is a Curriculum Vitae but rather speaking on impact, journey, and career trajectory. You too are welcome to link your journey thus far, to how this informs your next career move, namely pursuing a masters degree. You should depict an understanding of what you want to do in the future, how this is tangibly attainable, and what your ambitions are long term.

Studying in the UK

Outline why you have selected your chosen three university courses, and explain how this relates to your previous academic or professional experience and your plans for the future. Please do not duplicate the information you have entered on the work experience and education section of this form. - Question as per the Chevening Website

Do not duplicate your career essay in this essay, however, you can link the information. You will also be required to list the three universities you will be applying to, the name of the courses at the said universities, and why you chose the particular university.

Tip: Depending on which course you intend to study, google the top-performing universities in the said field to inform your university choice. Then ensure that the universities you would like to attend are Chevening partner universities, before finalizing your list of your three chosen universities.

Bonus: I have asked three scholars who have managed to successfully be chosen for Chevening before to assist with proofreading 3 prospective scholars essays before submission. Kindly note that these will be given on a first-come, first-serve basis. This available to a total of 9 prospective scholars and no more. Only the 9 successful prospective scholars will be contacted. If you are not contacted, unfortunately, the 9 spots were already taken.

To get your essays proofread - please fill in the form at the link here .

(Available to ONLY the first 9 applicants)

Proofreading volunteer scholars (each reading 3 prospective scholars essays EACH)

Rosalia Shiimi - Rosalia holds a BSc Honours Degree in Geology and a Certificate in Investment Management from the University of Cape Town. She is currently the Acting Grade Control Geologist at Vedanta Zinc International’s Gamsberg Operation. She is a part of the 2021/2022 Chevening cohort, pursuing a Master of Science in Applied Environment Geology at Cardiff University.

Abel is a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) and former Head of Internal Audit. He holds a Bachelor of Accounting Science and Postgraduate Diploma in Internal Auditing. In addition, he too is a Section Chairperson and Branch Executive member in SPYL and serve on the NCCI Windhoek Trading Committee. He will be pursuing a Master of Arts in International Relations at the University of Birmingham.

Hilja Eelu - Hilja is a UCT molecular biology graduate and a previous recipient of the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Fellowship. Having been awarded both the Chevening and Commonwealth scholarship, she will be pursuing the MSc Control of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine starting September 2020, thanks to the Commonwealth scholarship.

Additional Reading Material

Essay Tips from the Reading Committee of Chevening

Essay Examples

Writing an effective networking essay

My Application for Chevening Scholarship

Chevening Leadership Essay

How I won the Chevening Scholarship - Part 2: Writing your Essays

From One Powerhouse to another

Twitter - @MavisBraga

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Thank you so much for your great effort. I have got tons of ideas after reading your tips and essay prompts. You are really amazing one. Love you from Myanmar

laurensia.saraswati

Thoughts Left Unspoken

Writing Chevening Essay: Breakdown Those 4 Questions

Writing an essay for Chevening scholarship was not an easy task. But surely, we need to invest our time to write, revise and polish it. The whole writing process took me 1.5 months, but let’s not use this as a standard as anyone can have different situations.

In this post, I’m going to breakdown each question and share how I answered my Chevening essay. It is surely not the perfect one, but I’d like to share what I think essential when answering those four questions. I also did a mentoring program for Chevening applicants 19/20 and some of my mentees were accepted! Having said that, I’m sure there are some of my tips that you can use.

Disclaimer. This post does not reflect on the Chevening Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and its partner organisations. This story is just my experience and personal thoughts working on Chevening’s essay.

Without further ado, let’s go through each question.

Leadership and Influence 

One of the common thoughts that most applicants have about leadership is the position; the title. I would say, no. The title is a legitimation that you have the power to lead, but beyond that, I think the most important thing that Chevening really look is the impact of your leadership. They are also looking for a potential leader. So, it does not matter if you don’t have a Manager, Head, Leader, etc in your resume as long as you can showcase your influencing and leadership skills by giving examples.

Before start writing, think about what leadership accomplishments that you had. List all down and select two to three examples that gave great impact and made you learn the most. Each question only allows 500 words hence we really need to be careful to choose which experience to be put in the essay. If you can, try to put examples in different cases and environment to show that you have a range of leadership experiences.

As I already mentioned in the previous post about general tips for writing Chevening  essay, it is important to give an introduction. Although this is just a suggestion, if you’re unsure where to start, you can try with what you believe about leadership or a brief about what kind of leader you think you are. After that, you can link to your leadership experiences, supporting your statement about the leadership that you write in the introduction. Build an engaging introduction is also crucial to make the panel stay reading your story. Remember, they read thousands of essays, at least you want to keep them engaged with your essay.

In my case, my first sentence in the intro was: I believe that the leaders are not born, but made through a process of hard work.  I then supported this statement by briefly telling several experiences during high schools and how it has been forming me primary wisdom about leadership. However, this is not my highlight of the leadership experience that I want to tell the panel. Hence, I used a linking sentence such as  I apply this wisdom to excel my role in current employment, but my training is never complete. The linking sentence could also serve as a bridge to the next thing I have on my plate and build the story’s flow.

Then, I wrote two examples of my leadership experiences which are happened in my office using Situation, Task, Actions, Result (STAR) structure. Read about this here . I would say give more portion for “action” because the more specific and detail you give, the more panellist know you hence more room to asses you.

I wrote one success story about my experiences in leading an early-stage start-up company. When you write a success story, make sure that you’re really specific about what you did, what steps that you did differently to achieve the goal? Did you face challenges? How did you overcome the challenge? Did people doubt you? How did you convince them to finally follow your leadership? I wrote about making an unpopular decision which I deemed a huge challenge; I should do it otherwise it won’t do any good for the company. From this story, I took an angle on the lesson learned and how it contributed to mature my emotions.

When you write about result, if you can, give a quantifiable result to justify the impact. However, the bottom line is to justify your impact. Tell them that there are people who benefited from the projects that you led — it could be personal or organisational.

Another thing is to mention your lesson learned. What you learned from each experience that contributes to your personal development. I personally think this is critical to show that you’re a human and a growing person. We all know that leadership is not a one-day skill, it takes years to sharpen it hence mistakes are okay to be mentioned as long as you can turn the “angle” into supporting your story.

Finish the essay with a closing paragraph which amplifies Chevening’s role in developing your leadership skill. What is your aspiration, in regards to leadership skill, if you were accepted as Chevening scholar? State this briefly and do the same for the next 4 questions.

I would say that the networking question was a bit difficult for me to elaborate. Why? Because again, Chevening is looking for someone whose networking skills could create an impact. So, in my opinion, it’s not about showing off how big your network is or how often you attend networking events, instead of how you use your network to create a greater impact.

Using the same approach as in question 1, answer the question by STAR structure. Started by an introduction, get into the main body and finish with closing.

In my case, I was using my exchange program to South Korea during undergraduate study as a chance to meet new friends — where one of that friend was playing a great role of me working at an early-stage startup company, a place where I highlighted my  leadership skills in the first question. The company is obviously has been a place for me to create an impact on the team and communities. For instance, a collaboration opportunity with external media to provide cross-content and it would give us huge traffic for the website.

Emphasise the impact you’ve created because of the networking you did. Give two to three networking skills and experiences that you have and again, be detail. Highlight that the impact is not only beneficial for you, but also for another side that you network with.

In the closing, you should elaborate Chevening’s role in your networking skills, you can try to relate how Chevening would expand your networking and how will you use Chevening networking if you were accepted as Chevening scholar.

Studying in the UK

While questions about leadership and networking are more to dig your skills and capability in becoming a potential future leader, in my opinion, questions about studying in the UK and career plan are crucial to showing your cause, passion and how do you stay true with that. This can be a very critical part that would differentiate you from other applicants I guess, as I would say that Chevening is looking for people who would serve and build their community. So, it is important to answer the last 2 questions coherently.

To make your essay coherent, try to answer these questions as a base for you to answer questions number 3 and 4.

• What is my passion/concern?
• What problems do I want to solve?
• How will I solve the problems?

My ultimate advise for this part is don’t write more than 50% for the courses and campus rank. Write more about you: your passion, area of expertise, problems found in your field and what is your vision — which supposed to be related with your expertise area. Think about why taking a master study in those three sp ecific courses and universities is going to help you to achieve your vision. This information is really helpful to link and congruent your story in the question no.4 (career plan). 

In my case, I used a fact that the growth of digital start-up in Indonesia has been astonishing recently but it is not followed by the success rate of a startup. If you want to use a fact, don’t forget to put the source. I outlined that the major problem was startup founders mostly great in building products yet tend to ignore other managerial skills such as people development, sales and finance (again, I put source). I then linked this statement to my personal experience working in an early stage start-up company where I had limited experiences or skills which happens to be a similar situation like startup founders. Hence, a degree in innovation and entrepreneurship would give me a balanced set of technical skills and knowledge in building early ventures.

From previous paragraph, I answered three basic questions to outline my background. Who am I? — A start-up early employee, what is my passion? — early venture development, what problems do I want to solve? — the high rate of startup failure rate and how will you solve it? — a degree in innovation and entrepreneurship by Chevening scholarship as one of stepping stones and followed by action plans that I will write in the question no.4

After outlining the “background” story about you, you can write the three courses. Highlight the reason why you choose them, it can be the campus ranking, curriculum, or professors/projects. I chose Warwick University’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship because of the curriculum, the final project worth 50% of the final grade in which devoted to developing the business innovation carefully.  The school also placed the second rank of best Entrepreneurship master degree in the UK, after Oxford. My second choice was Imperial College and the third was the City University of London.

By the way, another advise choosing the school, besides research the course and its curriculum, do find out about the whole campus. Think about the facilities, clubs/societies, opportunities, the lifestyle (or living cost), nearby attractions, the city it’s located, etc. Ask current students about living in your designated campus, how do they like the campus and its surroundings? How about life after campus? I’m saying this not because I dislike Warwick University, instead, the campus has its own art centre and biggest sports centre in Coventry — which is realllly cool, but I would say Coventry itself doesn’t have many attractions to offer. But for the bright side, that really helps me to focus on my study and save money (it’s true!); it forces me to travel to other places more often hehe.  I would share my travel stories in other posts. Coventry also not too far from London and Birmingham, the two biggest cities in the UK. It’s easier for me to jump on opportunities in UK startups scene.

Career Plans

One thing I always shared to Chevening applicants who asked me to proofread their essay is: make a clear plan and breakdown into short term, mid-term and long term goal. Ensure each breakdown is contributing to your long-term goals if that makes sense? This way, it shows that you know how to get there. In my case, I wrote for immediate plans (2 years after study), the next 5 years and beyond 5 years. Make sure that your career goals are answering your concern and supporting your passion (stated in question no.3) which forms a more congruent essay.

As you need to relate your career goals to what the UK Government do in your country, you need to research. This might be different in every country and it might change year by years. You can start the search from the official UK’s government website ( http://gov.uk/world/name of country/news). Research thoroughly and try to link what you can contribute through your career goal.

Another thing to highlight is state how Chevening is one of the paths you would greatly benefit to take you to your future goals. How would you apply things you got from Chevening (the scholarship, the network, the education, the international friends) in your future career path? In my case, I outlined that I would use network from Chevening alumni to open access for mentors who can guide and share expertise to founders in establishing a new business.

As this is the last question, end the whole essay with a strong “punchline”. Keep elaborate Chevening, you can try to summarise outlined your aspiration by being a Chevening scholar. In my case, I mentioned that I still have to acquire deeper knowledge in innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as expanding my network to collaborate together in solving the problem. I acknowledged that from previous experiences, I gained valuable lessons in networking and leadership, however, I believe it’s still not enough. I then closed with thus, by being a Chevening scholar, I believe I would be (fill in the blank). 

I hope this article helps you! I also want to highlight that this is just my personal experience and thoughts, it might be not relevant for different courses; many of my Chevening friends pursue a course that I don’t know it exists 😀 (but that’s what I like about Chevening: they acknowledge that future leaders can contribute in any field). Lastly, write the essay with all your heart, write what you feel right and true. Good luck, keep fighting and believe in yourself!

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Published by laurensiairma

ESTJ; my stories are on my own perspective. View all posts by laurensiairma

61 thoughts on “Writing Chevening Essay: Breakdown Those 4 Questions”

[…] breakdown of each question is posted here. However, there are some important points I want to point out when you work for Chevening […]

Thank you! That’s really inspiring!

what a magnificent breakdown kak, terima kasih 🙂 *udah pinter cantik pula idamaannnnn huaa

Haha thank you! Goodluck!!

Thank you so much! My leadership essay exceeds the word count of 500, will the reading committee consider my application? this is my biggest concern, please leave me a reply if you know about the issue.

HI Mohammad, I think it will be best to stay at 500. Panellists read thousands of essays, they probably do skimming reading and you don’t want to leave them uninterested if your story is too long. It’s our challenge to make our essay is engaging and effective within 500 words. It’s hard indeed, but just be direct and straight to the answers asked in the questions. Hope it helps.

Thanks a lot for your all your tips! I’m glad I bumped into your blog. I have a tiny question related to essays 3 and 4: when I write about the efforts of the UK being made in my country, do I need to cite/quote the, let’s say, the FCDO and put their reference somewhere? I’m wondering since I think the link itself would take away many words out of my 500 word count. Or is there a specific format I should stick to? Thanks once again!!

Hi Mitch. When I cited the source, I just write “according to xxx research in 2015 (for example)..” and then put the whole link in the footnote. Actually there’s no specific format about citing (As this is not academic essay) and I guess this format worked well. Hope it helps!

Amazing guidance, many thanks for sharing this with us confused youths. I am working for an educational Facebook page in Vietnam (which works to aid scholarship applicants in their process and is currently having over 41 000 followers). May I translate this entry into Vietnamese and share it on my page? I will credit you with this link and send you the draft before publishing Thank you in advance,

Hi Anne, thanks for reaching me out. Yes, sure you can 🙂 Please head to my Instagram @laurensiaimce and dm me. Thank youu!

Thank you so much for such an amazing and detailed information.

Dear Linos, Thanks for the kind word!

Thank you. Your insights shed bright lights on what panel really look for and what they expect. It is my first year applying for Chevening. The process itself offers so much excitement. I am a language teacher and want to develop myself as leader and influencer in education. Could I contact you directly to get help for my essays? thank you.

Hi Bekzod, yes you can head to my Instagram and leave me a dm. Thank you!

Thank you for this! Its a wonderful detailed and helpful article!

Thank youuuu!

Thank you so much Lauren, your posts has been really helpful. Please do you know if Chevening also supports for non partner universities

Hi Isaiah, they support non-partners too. If Im not mistaken, what makes different between partner and non-partner is the scholarship ratio between chevening and the sponsors (partner). For awardee, there wont be any impact.

priceless informaion!!!

Thank you 🙂

Thank you for this article Lauren, please can I send you a mail

Hello ! I am a student applying for Chevening . This is my first time. I have no IG or FB. May i have your mail ID? I request you to proofread my essays and offer feedback. Many thanks, M

Hi, please contact me via linkedin: Laurensia Irma Saraswati. Thank youu!

A very thoughtful article! I am also applying for Chevening scholarship this year. This article gives me a lot of insights into my essay

May I ask you to proofread my essays kak? Thanks a lot!

Regards, FM

Hi Faisal, thank you so much for reading my blog! I’m currently unavailable for proof read, so sorry! Good luck for your application!

Hi Abdibasid, thank you for reading my blog too! Good luck for your application!

Hi Laurensia, thanks for sharing this insightful article. Just curious in your opinion, is it better to write all three courses or can I just focus to one course only?

Hi Dee, so sorry for late reply. I wrote all three courses but I explained the first choice slightly more than other two. It’s because I really like my first choice and highlight what I need to study there. Hope this helps.

Hello Laurensia, I am beyond grateful to you for this detailed article!. I tried to reach out to you on LinkedIn but it seems that it’s not possible to contact you via instant messaging. I hope you get to see my request.

Hi Assia, yeah we connected through Linkedin right? 🙂

This is a beautiful guide, if followed carefully with a mother luck, one can get the scholarship I believe. Thanks a bunch

Hi James, thank you so much for reading my blog. Good luck!!

Wow ! Just perfect post. One of the best posts I have ever read about Chevening. Heartfelt thanks ♡♡

Hi Marwa, thank youuuu!!

Thank you so much for this, your guidance was invaluable!

Dear Akeyo, thank youuu so much for the kind words. Good luck on your application!

Dear Laurensia, This is the most flexible article i have ever read for Chevening application. I have a question regarding experience as i have more than 6 years of experience which is totaling 11,000 hours (35 hours / week). The minimum requirement is 2,800 hours but i want to know is there any upper limit. if i show the full 11,000 into my application. Would it impact or not? Waiting for your reply. Thanks

Hi Sagheer,

Thanks for reading my blog! As far as I know there is an upper limit, but I forgot what the number is. Btw, if the system already recorded that you have min. 2000 hrs of working experience, you’ll be okay!

Thank you Laurensia for your reply. Yes i checked Chevening website they said a range of minimum 35 to maximum 60 hours per week. So what i understand is that i can add maximum employers as far as the time spend per week at each employer does not exceed 60 hours per week.

Halo, Kak Lauren! What an inspiring article :)) Kak Lauren, would you please be my mentee for Chevening 🙂 I do really need someone to review my essay. Hopefully you can be my mentee. Thankyou in advance :))

Hi Ratri, Apologies for late reply. I’m soo sorry I’m currently unavailable for becoming a mentor neither proofread assistance 😦 Good luck in your application!

HeyLaurensia, Loved the the detailed article. I used the contents in your blog to edit my essays. Thank you so much.

Hi Maryam, thanks for your kind word! Good luck for your application!

Dear Laurensia, I am so excited to read your blog which has a completed information for potential applicants. I have question that i have worked more than 11,000 hours and if i want to show them in full does it have a negative impact on my application? Is there any Upper limit for working hours?

Thanks the insights

hello Laurensia, Thank you for this help! I want to ask if it’s okay to write UK in essay or we have to in full (united kingdom)? another qn is that, is there a problem when one chooses one course at all three universities or we have to choose three courses as well?

That was very usefull I think if this essey included some bullet piont can be more ataractive. Tank you .

Halo kak,… Ketika kita copas essay ke sistem chevening,sebaiknya antar paragraf diberi spasi (di-enter) atau tidak ya? Apakah hal ini mempengaruhi? Terima kasih

Apologise for very late reply. Aku dikasih paragraf dulu, supaya bacanya enak. Jujur gak tau mempengaruhi atau nggaknya, cuma at least buat akunya sendiri, aku jadi bisa baca lebih jelas. Hope this helps!

Hi Laurensia, thank you for such great tips on writing the chevening essay. I have been applying for chevening scholarship for the past 3 years and I am not shortlisted for interviews. I was wondering if you would be able to give me points on my essays? It would be great help for me. Thank you!

great explanation, really help me to start my essay! i’ll just bookmarked this, then

Thank you! Goodluck!

Hello, I am really glad i came across your blog. My questions are, I was given admission in only one University and that is the course i really wanted, can i just focus on that one course? I also want to know, what to know the most challenging stage for you. How long can the process of writing the essay take? Do i need someone to guide and coach me physically?

Hi Simon, thanks for reading my blog. I think, based on Chevening requirement, we still need to provide 3 courses. Perhaps you want to include similar courses in 3 different campus? Because as far as I know, if applicants can’t obtain the unconditional acceptance letter from the first choice, then they can submit LOA from the second choice.

The most challenging stage while writing essay was connecting the dots. I had several leadership & networking experiences, but struggled to showcase which one to put in the essay(since I only have 500 words). I know what to study, but difficult how to link it with future career and past experiences. I got helped by a friend and together we dig down what should be included in the essay, what is not. The process itself was more like a journey to know more of what I’m good at and my aspiration is.

For guide and coach, it depends on you. If you think you really know what your passion is and have clear aspiration, then maybe no need. Sometimes coach/mentor helps to connect your dots, it is you who should discover the dot itself.

Hope it helps, good luck!

thanks a lot forthis great article Laurencia, I wanted to know how we can get the university admission ? in the website part where you can search the available courses , they don’t show them you have to write the name or the university or course ? thnks for your help

Hi Hamza, you can find the course & campus list here: https://www.chevening.org/scholarships/find-a-course/ the list has a direct link to the campus website.

thank you so much be blessed

Thank youu!

Hello Dear Laurencia,

I hope that you are doing well and that Eid passed in a good way for you and your family , how can I contact you please it’s urgent , thanks a lot I made comments in the past but you don’t respond

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Cynthia Kimola

Connecting You To Opportunities

Chevening Scholarship Networking Essay – How Should I Write it?

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Writing Chevening Networking Essay

by Quva | Sep 7, 2019 | General | 0 comments

Now that you have completed your Leadership essay, you must have a fair idea of how this entire exercise works. Writing the next essay, that is, the Chevening networking essay can be trickier still, as the question of the essay requires a number of points, which have to be answered together in a coherent manner. Following is the statement for the Networking essay:

Chevening is looking for individuals with strong professional relationship building skills, who will engage with the Chevening community and influence and lead others in their chosen profession. Please explain how you build and maintain relationships in a professional capacity, using clear examples of how you currently do this, and outline how you hope to use these skills in the future. (Minimum word count: 100 words, maximum word count: 500 words)

To make the formulation of the Chevening networking essay convenient, it is a good idea to extract all the requirements of the question by listing them individually, so you do not skip any part. In this case, the question requires the applicant to:

• Maintain professional relationships
• Give an example to illustrate the aforementioned point
• Outline how they are going to use their networking skills in the future.

Now, before writing, you need to identify people that can form your professional network out of those that you have associated or interacted with in your life. Those can include:

• Former class fellows, teachers, or professors.
• Former or current employees or employers
• Any organization or professional bodies you have been a member of.

Once there is a list of the people who can form your network, you will be able to think of any meaningful professional relationships that you have with him, which will also bring to mind any occasion where you used your networking skills efficiently to achieve a goal. This means that this exercise will help you evaluate your professional network, and identify any examples that you can use in the essay to highlight your networking abilities.

As discussed above, chevening is looking to understand how you build and maintain relationships, so think along those lines. Think of what strategies you use to connect with people, and how have you stayed in touch with those people over the years? Do you interact with them through social media every once in a while? Do you attend any club meetings where you regularly interact with people? Think of the last person from your office that you communicated with, and remember how that communication took place? Was it over the phone, or via email? Did they ask for your help in something? You should also be thinking about what you hope to achieve by building these connections.

Choosing the example

When thinking of examples for the essay, think of events where you used your network to influence an important outcome or solved a problem. The way you narrate the example should indicate how strong your network is, and how you benefitted from that strong networking ability. It is important to filter out the least impactful examples, and only use the ones that really fulfill the purpose mentioned in the last line.

This brings us to the TRUE approach, much similar to the STAR approach used for the Chevening leadership essay. The TRUE approach will aid you in prioritising your examples and choosing the best one. It is as follows:

T – True. The example should be absolutely true. Do not be tempted to fabricate the ‘perfect’ example to include in your essay because you will be caught. Maintain your honesty and integrity, as you are expected to. R – Relevant. The example should be relevant to the overall theme of your essay. It is important to remember that the four essays should not be separate, disconnected essays on individual themes. Rather, all four Chevening essays should be interconnected. Be sure to avoid writing anything in one essay that could contradict something in another essay. U – Unique. Keep your examples unique. Talk about something that truly highlights your ability to network and mutually benefit from important connections. Write about a unique scenario that other people are not likely to have been in, which will make you stand out from other applicants. E – Exciting. Make the example exciting. Instead of writing in a complex, hard to follow manner, go for smooth narration, and use impactful words to make the story exciting. However, resist the temptation to be dramatic at all costs, and describe the events in a practical and factual manner.

Using this approach will help you write a persuasive essay in a practical manner.

Using your skills in the future

The final part of the essay is about how you are going to use your current networking skills in the future. Chevening is interested to know how you can use your skills to benefit and interact with the wider Chevening community. In this part, first talk about your contribution to the Chevening community while studying in the UK to let them know that you aim to utilize your networking skills to build new connections in the Chevening community. Secondly, talk about how you plan on using your networking capabilities to maintain a strong relationship between the UK and Pakistan upon returning home. You could talk about collaboration between the two countries on projects, for example.

Remember, keep the goal of writing the Chevening networking essay in your mind at all times. It is to demonstrate your potential to form strong networking relationships with people around you that are mutually beneficial, and to fulfill Chevening’s goal of fostering good relationships between the UK and other countries.

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Where did I go wrong? Reading Committee feedback for applicants

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As Chevening Scholarship results are announced, you may find that you have not received the news you were hoping for, and in this case will no doubt wonder where you might have gone wrong in your application – after all, you’ll want to review your application ahead of reapplying with even stronger essays when applications reopen soon!

Chevening uses independent Reading Committees to assess all eligible applications, and this year, they assessed over 53,000 eligible Chevening Scholarship applications for 2020/2021 intake. Based on their collective feedback, we have highlighted some of the most common reasons applications were not scored as highly as they could have been, and what applicants can do to improve their essays for the future.

Leadership and influence

Chevening is looking for individuals who 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.

• The best scoring applicants demonstrated clear examples of leadership and influencing with concrete results.

Weaknesses:

• Very few applicants were able to combine successful leadership qualities with evidence.
• Some applicants focussed on leadership examples from their early academic experiences, even their school experiences, rather than examples from their recent or current professional experience which may have provided more relevant examples of leadership ability.
• A significant number seemed to have assumed that occupying a particular position or role was in itself sufficient to demonstrate leadership skills. Thus, detailed instancing of how influence was successfully gained and deployed, and the beneficial outcomes of this, was fairly rare.
• The most common error is students continuing to define leadership rather than provide examples of their traits and linking them to the degree/post-study work plans.

General recommendations:

• Taking more of a STAR (situation, task, action, result) approach may have helped to refine these responses.
• Applicants should focus less on the collective “we” and “team” in this answer and place greater emphasis on their individual contribution, to achieve a higher score.
• Examples required more focus in terms of exactly how they led and, more notably, what were the results of their leadership and how did that have a long-term impact on their professional development.

Chevening is looking for individuals with strong professional relationship-building skills, who will engage with the Chevening community and influence and lead others in their chosen profession. Please explain how you build and maintain relationships in a professional capacity, using clear examples of how you currently do this, and outline how you hope to use these skills in the future.

• Strong applicants in this section used specific examples of their own networks, describing unique and diverse ways of maintaining networks, and discussed how they facilitate networking.
• Many applicants scored ‘good’ as they could clearly evidence networking skills, and even the start of building networks within the current Chevening community, but few expanded on this.
• Merely joining a social media network is relatively straightforward and quick to organise, and probably not the strongest example of relationship building skills; few applications demonstrated in specific detail how and why creating and joining these networks had proved beneficial.
• Many of the applicants found it difficult to connect their notions of networking with clear examples of using them at work. Answers were often generic with relationships and collaboration with direct and indirect colleagues discussed, but not expanded upon to clearly show how these relationships would help the individual in the future.

Studying in the UK

Outline why you have selected your chosen three university courses, and explain how this relates to your previous academic or professional experience and your plans for the future. Please do not duplicate the information you have entered on the work experience and education section of this form

• The strongest answers had a clear focus on study outcomes with evidence of research at institution and course level.
• The applicants who answered this question best did so by having distinct paragraphs discussing their courses.
• Applicants frequently did not specify their chosen universities or demonstrate an awareness of key details from within their fields.
• Applicants who had applied for three very diverse course subjects did not inspire confidence in their research into courses and were frequently unable to give clear and coherent reasons for these choices.
• While many showed a cursory or better than cursory knowledge of their chosen course and university, often the detail given on this read like a cut-and-paste from university promotional material rather than real engagement with subject or course detail.

Career Plan

Chevening is looking for individuals who have a clear post-study career plan. Please outline your immediate plans upon returning home and your longer term career goals. You may wish to consider how these relate to what the UK government is doing in your country.

• The strongest responses tended to be based on an outline of specific, concrete goals, which usually therefore seemed more convincing and achievable.
• Applicants often listed future aims in relation to their careers, and some explored realistic next steps in depth. Yet most did not give a strong rationale, which made a potential clear career path unconvincing.
• Many applicants illustrated a desire to do a PhD in the post study section. This is ambitious and realistic, but wasn’t always a convincing career goal on its own. That is to say, it needed to be backed up with reasons why they wanted to pursue research work and how it plays a part in their longer-term ambitions.
• Career plans were too often poorly developed and it was not possible to discern how a Chevening Scholarship would be of benefit.

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