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WRITING AN EFFECTIVE
NETWORKING ESSAY FOR YOUR
CHEVENING SCHOLARSHIP
17-21 minutes

“If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10

years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of
prosperity, grow people” Chinese Proverb

Networking is not about just connecting people. It’s about

connecting people with people, people with ideas, and people
with opportunities – Michele Jennae

In the previous two articles, we comprehensively introduced

Chevening Scholarship and guided you on how to ace your
leadership essay.

In this article, we will briefly take you through the networking essay
since the core has been covered under the leadership essay. You
can find the essay here, if you have yet not yet read it

As we said earlier, Networking alongside Leadership/Influence are

the two central tenets of the Chevening Scholarship. Therefore,
you ought, in no uncertain terms, demonstrate this in your essays.
Even in the career essay, you must show how you will use your
networks to achieve your goals. Throughout this essay, focus will
be on “effective networking” –what you need to demonstrate to the

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Chevening Scholarship Reading Committee. We also advise you

to read this article alongside the leadership essay, since the two
can’t be separated; in fact, effective leaders use their networking
skills to influence and lead people; although we will quickly add
that they are not necessarily one and the same. However, the
essay format is much the same and the extra or excesses
leadership essay examples can be used in the networking essay
because, networking and leadership share one thing in common:
influence. Simply put, you need some form of leverage to
effectively network or lead people, e.g. to do business you need to
convince/influence the other party to transact with you.

So what is Networking?

According to www.dictionary.com, networking is “a supportive

system of sharing information and services among individuals and
groups having a common interest”. There are so many definitions
depending on the source you visit but in all of them, the key words
are still “sharing information and services amongst individuals or
groups having common interest”. In effective networking, it’s not
just about numbers or profiles of contacts or collaborators; it’s
about “cliques”, close associations and “friends with benefits”.
Networking should be a mutual, symbiotic relationship or
association, where you receive and give; a two-way relationship to
create win-win situations- this is effective networking. In
networking, therefore, you must answer the “who, why, how,
what, when” questions. In other words, you need to have clearly
defined goals, mission, vision and strategy in your networking. Ask
yourself, what do I stand to gain from this partnership I am
entering or have been for the last 5 years? You must also have a
clear networking strategy on how you hope to extract the most out

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of your networks. This answers the how question. Clearly define

the kind or type of people you will network with. As already stated,
effective networking is about creating symbiotic or win-win
situations, so you must be able to state what you bring to the table.
How long do you want the relationship to last? How regularly do
you communicate? Remember, communication is key to effective
networking. Provide regular and timely feedbacks but don’t
inundate your associates with needless emails. Let each feedback
serve a purposeful purpose. Effective networking goes just beyond
establishing relationships or associations – it seeks to build, grow,
expand and sustain them and these should clearly stated
throughout your networking essay(Please take time to read
about effective networking strategies and skills).

If you have crystal clear answers to the above questions, then you
are an effective networker and by extension, an influencer; a
leader.

As in the leadership essay, we will now go through a more detailed

but precise approach to our networking essay. First we…

Generate Networking Examples

Use the TRUE approach that was clearly explained in the

leadership essay article to derive and rank your examples because
we will not repeat it here. When Chevening asks for professional
relationship building skills or professional networks, the easiest
conclusion most of us would jump to is “they are only seeking
work-related networks” but this is far from it. Professional
relationships are varied in nature and practically include all those
you relate with in your day-to-day life. For academic purposes,
there are about 5 types of professional networks, namely; nodal,

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expansive, strategic, personal and operational networks. However,

we won’t delve into these as they are of no significance here.

First, we need to know the people who can form part of our
professional networks. These include but are not limited to:

Current and past workmates/employees/employers, including

those you volunteered with

Professional Association members: this is a strong example of

networking. State what professional bodies you belong, e.g.
Association of Accountants of X country, Medical Association etc.

Former professors, tutors and lecturers

Former classmates etc.

Having these in mind should nudge your mind to critically review

any meaningful relationship you have with them. Also, know that
there are various means of networking and these include:

Periodic member association face-to-face meetings

Social media e.g. Facebook, Linkedin, teleconferences, etc

Feedback emails

Impromptu meetings with important stakeholders

Referrals/Recommendations by close associates

Dialogue meetings e.g. with community members, etc.

After this listing, ask yourself a few questions like:

Which professional body do I belong to? What is the composition?

What values does it espouse/stand for? What impact are they
creating in the community/society? What’s my role there? What
have I gained/gleaned from belonging to this association? Are

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there any special meetings, workshops, seminars, or camps

organised by this organisation? Any important people you met in
such meetings and have you established any impactful
relationships with them? Etc

In my current workplace, what is my role? How often do we meet?

How does the organisation build rapport with both internal and
external consumers? What’s my greatest contribution to enhance
the organisation’s sphere of influence?

Do I belong to any volunteering group or have I started one? What

brings together? How often do we meet? How did we start or what
compelled me to found or join it? What’s my role there?

How about any online or offline social networking groups, get-

togethers etc?

The key question, that Chevening too is interested, is how do

you build and maintain these associations? To aptly answer
this, you must revisit your the “what, who, why, how and when”
questions. What strategies do you use for effective networking?
How regularly do you communicate with your network of
collaborators? Do you provide feedback to them? What is your
vision and mission of networking? Are your goals short or long
term? Do you have something to offer to the association or are you
interested in being the sole beneficiary without the other party
gaining anything in return? How do get yourself heard or noticed in
a gathering of high-ranking members of society? How regularly do
you attend social gatherings and/or networking events both online
and offline? Do you have business cards and do you ask the same
from members you meet in networking events? How about your
social media accounts, do you regularly update them to match

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your current jobs, interests and accomplishments? Do you listen

attentively and pay undivided attention to the concerns of other
members?

You may not probably answer all the above in the affirmative, but
it’s difficult to establish and maintain relationships if you answer all
the above questions in the negative. Note that I have used the
question format in order to stimulate your thinking.

In the Leadership essay, we showed you how to generate

examples. We also told you that leadership and networking essays
greatly overlap and thus any excess examples can be used in the
networking essay. By excess, I don’t imply those that carry less
weight, if you do this, you won’t score well in your networking
essay. Use the TRUE approach to derive and weigh your
examples. The STAR/SAR/CAR/PAR technique clearly explained
in the Leadership Essay can then be used to answer the essay.

We will look at the Networking Question

Networking Question

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)

In answering this essay, your chief role is to show that you have
very strong networking skills (strong relationship building skills)

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which you use to influence others, and succinctly demonstrate how

you will employ these skills in the future.

For this article, we will use an example of an applicant, a medical

doctor, who belongs to Uganda Medical Association, he’s an
ordinary paid up member, but who from time to time organises
medical camps, seminars and workshops. In such scientific
conference, he meets a renowned professor from the UK (let’s
say) who informed him/her of the Chevening programme and
scholarship opportunities available for students. Additionally the
applicant has learnt, through the scientific conferences, how to
write abstracts for presentation. He/she is now capable managing
complex diseases in his/her community hospital due to interacting
with senior colleagues during such seminars.

Before we arrange the above example into an essay type, allow

me to briefly take back to the STARL technique shared here and in
last week’s articles. Some of the readers enquired if it was
possible to win Chevening without using it to write the leadership
and networking essay. My answer was that it’s very much possible
to clinch the award without strictly adhering to the STARL rule; in
fact even last week, I told you that the technique is not cast in
stone. I also explained in the leadership article the type of
questions that are best responded to using the STARL rule –
namely the behavioural type questions. You are at liberty to modify
or totally discard it; the point is answering the essay prompt in
totality, with no stone left unturned. In some of the networking
examples like belonging to a professional body (as above), the
method is agonisingly ineffective in guiding you to write a
compelling example. We are therefore going to rewrite the above
example but we will not use the standard STARL method, we will

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modify it.

The above example of the Networking Question will probably look

like this:

I belong to Uganda Medical Association, an umbrella association

of Uganda medical doctors collectively striving for better health
services and working conditions in Uganda. Through its various
activities such as annual scientific conferences, medical and
surgical camps, seminars and workshops, I have
interacted/interact with a number of leading medical professionals
in the country and beyond. For example, during the 2017 Annual
Scientific Conference, of which I was one of the organisers, I met
Professor Lee, a renowned maternal and child health professor at
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), and
guest speaker during the conference. His expertise on and
passion for maternal and child health impressed me so much that I
decided to request him to mentor me, which he happily obliged.
Through regular communication with him on mail and phone, he
has mentored me on my career and I have discovered my passion
for maternal and child health. Thanks to my inquisitiveness and
proactiveness, he informed me of the Chevening scholarship as a
source of funding my master’s at LSHTM. In turn, I was able to
provide for him some data regarding the malaria burden amongst
pregnant and lactating mothers.Through attending numerous
conferences and surgical camps, I have gained insight into writing
abstracts for scientific conferences, learnt up-to-date management
of various conditions, and used this knowledge and skills to
improve service delivery in my precinct, which has a severe
shortage of specialist doctors. Using weekly seminars, on-job
training, feedback, and focussed group discussions, I

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currently mentor 10 junior doctors and 24 midwives in managing

complicated conditions in pregnancy. This experience has taught
me the value of establishing strategic stronger ties with members
of the profession and being proactive.

From the above example, it is clear that STARL has little or no role
to play. On the other hand, however, someone could actually use
the STARL approach on the same example. In this case, it can
easily be seen that the writer had little understanding of writing
abstracts for publications/presentations and the dearth of
specialists in his district implied he had to learn management of
complex situations. This could thus be the Situation (no
knowledge writing abstracts, lack of medical specialists) and Task
(need to learn how to write abstract and manage complicated
cases on his own), the Action constitutes attending the
conferences and establishing a stronger bond with the professor
which brought him unprecedented success (Results) and opened
doors he had never known existed.Lessons learnt are on the very
last sentence. The choice is thus yours; you can stick to the
STARL approach or modify it provided you comprehensively
answer the question fully.

Note that in the example above, I have underlined some words.

When you read the question again, it asks you how you connect
with people currently. The underlined words are examples of
networking strategies (communication, having a goal, giving in
order to receive, proactiveness,etc).

Don’t also worry if your essay has some incidences in the past –
networking is not a one-off event, it’s a chain of focussed actions
to achieve a desired goal. Note that you can use the present
simple/continuous in places of present perfect if you find it

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uncomfortable using past tenses, e.g. “I am using this knowledge

to improve…” can perfectly replace “I have used this knowledge to
improve…” The point basically here is that you must show that you
are actively networking.

Depending on how many examples you have used (I strongly

suggest 2-3, for diversity), you need to answer the last part of the
question: How are you going to use these skills in the future.
There is some little trick here; go back to the question and slowly
read the first sentence. It clearly requires that candidates must
have strong networking skills to engage with the Chevening
community and influence and lead others in their chosen
profession. You must therefore be able to demonstrate how you
will engage with over 50,000Cheveningers (both current and past)
and again, what you bring on table. You could look at the various
Chevening networking events, debates, sports etc and see if you
can make a meaningful contribution. Just even by attending, you
are bound to network. How about the global and local (your
country) alumni association? What plans do you have for it/them?
When you return home for the mandatory 2 year post studies,
what plans do you have for your community, your country, and the
Chevening alumni in your country, etc? Remember the goal of
Chevening of fostering cooperation between the UK and partner
countries – you should thus mention what role you can play in
ensuring that the relationship between the UK and your countries
are stronger than ever before, e.g. Through my established
networks, both in Uganda and the UK, I plan being the nexus
between the two countries to foster cooperation and development
in the area of maternal and child health through collaborative
learning.

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Again we will share a few essay tips to help put up an overall an

essay worthy of an interview invitation:

Stick to the main points. Don’t go into unnecessary details – you

will have the opportunity to do that at interview.

The first draft is always too wordy – i recall mine had over 5,000
words. After writing, first leave it and get engrossed in other
activities. When you return, chop off all the redundant words,
repetitions and incoherent statements. You will be surprised at how
you can reduce them by as much as 40%.

Let 2-3 people assess review your essays. They are more likely to
notice glaring errors and also offer some useful insight e.g.
seeking clarification on ambiguous words and guiding you on
rewriting some sentences. The theme and the tone of the essays
should, however, remain yours.

Keep looking up at the essay question to ensure you have duly

covered all the parts of the question because, if you miss a part,
you will unfortunately score low and this may affect your overall
mark.

Write in clear, simple grammar. Avoid usage of complex jargon,

don’t leave the reader to second guess what you meant. Unless a
jargon has no simplified synonym, avoid it at most costs.

On abbreviations, unless these are universal and standard, avoid

them. If you feel you need to abbreviate some words, use put them
in full the first time and in brackets, put the abbreviation. You can
then use the abbreviated words without worrying at all.

In subsequent articles, more tips on minimising word count and the

dos and don’ts of scholarship essays will be shared.

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*Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article

are those of the authors and do not reflect those of the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), its partner
organisations or any scholarship awarding body. Whereas the
authors have taken every effort to provide accurate
information, they are not liable for any factual errors that may
be contained in this article.

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