Referrals: A Domino Effect
Finding my Footing, Gaining Experience
I became active on LinkedIn in mid-2017 after my return from the Fulbright scholarship program. While most of my Fulbright batchmates landed a job, I struggled. It was either the rejections from interview processes that demotivated me or despite the good salaries, the job descriptions of education counselor roles not being satisfactory enough. I was yet a stranger to the power of networking in communities such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Quora.
For the remaining months of 2017, I freelanced and focused on scholarship advisories for Fulbright wonderfully leading to 2 scholars getting their awards. I revamped my LinkedIn profile and updated the categories with my project, skills and quantified achievements in a storytelling format instead of the stereotypical resume/CV ‘choreographic listing’. Since LinkedIn is a social community platform built around professionalism, it allowed me to be creative with my marketing, branding and spotlighting my professional abilities and achievements. That is how I grew organically from following of 450 connections to a near 2000 in under 9 months. I was humbled by how some of my most meaningful posts (on inclusion, education, scholastic & career applications advising, accessibility advocacy and ableism) increased the views to a staggering 2300 over 2 days.
In early 2018, I finally joined an MNC because of its inclusive culture. As I strived to work my way up, my finances were still bad owing to living rent, exhausted expenses, and relocation away from my family home. In between my full-time job, I took up a voluntary lead editor position with Pakistan affiliate of US-based organization, ASCD, which had launched Pakistan’s 1st flagship, digital, educational research journal, The Reformer. Although I wasn’t too pleased about taking up an unpaid position, despite my shaky finances I kept going because it was a huge honor to be selected as one of their editors out of 73 applicants, and that too in my core discipline, i.e. leadership and research in education.
I worked on my stats, as I read interesting manuscripts and focused on differentiating my editing process and actively communicating to my team. In a nutshell, I edited and proofread > 35 manuscript entries each quarter, reviewed contributions from over 12 countries globally (~Pakistan, USA, Canada, Denmark, Australia, MENA region), and improved my turnaround time per manuscript to less than 24 hours! As I edited journal manuscripts from global educators and program directors for their entries, I accepted/rejected a manuscript with constructive feedback or revision request.
I learned the value of volunteerism for credibility. This volunteer opportunity turned out to be a blessing in disguise. If extremely high quality work is submitted, turnaround time is quick and the market is saturated, one should pursue a one-time project and leave a strong mark. This is exactly what happened in retrospect, and I had a similar experience back in the days when I freelanced as a content editor. What was originally agreed to be a 2-month gig extended to nearly 2 years. My freelance clients were scattered all over the world who insisted on getting their work edited and rewritten by me.
This clarified two things: Firstly, the market is super-saturated with writers and editors but their professionalism and quality of work are debatable so I increased my per word rate and refused to bend down to a below-market rate. Secondly, my base was growing despite having left specific freelancing tasks. My previous clients still messaged me about my availability. My long stint with them reflected strongly on my LinkedIn profile as a journal editor which led me to better platforms.
The Start Of a Journey
In June 2018, I stumbled across a Facebook post. The education department in Aga Khan University (AKU) was looking for an editor who could edit and format their MPhil students' dissertations. In between interviews for a full-time job and the prospect of launching my educational consultancy, and multiple bridge jobs, I sent an email to the department expressing an interest. An extremely concise email, a pager of CV, and an updated LinkedIn profile later, I got a response within 10 minutes! They let me know upfront that the dissertation's formatting and editing are part of the university’s special funding thus the remuneration would be nominal. What came next wasn’t a happy surprise. For a 100 page dissertation, the rate was way below nominal. Despite my negotiation effort, that was the best they could offer. I then had to weigh the pros and cons. My earlier freelance experience reminded me of the power of a referral in a super-saturated market.
I took up the dissertation’s editing project for one strong reason. The department solicited me specifically to undertake their project after I passed their sample test (an unpaid 20 minutes task which I submitted in 10 minutes in the middle of my full-time job much to their surprise!). In the next hour, I got an email from the department’s Head. That is when I knew I was right in taking this up in spite of the low remuneration. The feedback from AKU-IED Associate of their graduate programs was positive and the students started sending their work.
In the span of 5 months, I edited full dissertations (6 chapters - 140 pages) for 6 MPhil Education grad students and formatted them to APA 6th Edition referencing style.
The Outcome? Successfully referred to another editing project; the AKU-IED 11th International Education Conference proceedings. This time, the department asked me for my own remuneration! I was curious as to why I was chosen for this task and their reply made my heart soar; a graduate student, whose thesis I had edited, had upvoted me to their department’s management. See the power of referrals? The conference editing project was solicited to be completed in under 10 days. This opportunity meant I could set my rate for urgent tasks. I was kept on my toes round the clock as the attachments kept pouring in from international keynotes presenters, directors, and global educators whose speeches, abstracts for papers & poster presentations I had to edit with full quality and attention. After 10 days, the invoice was sent and payment was received.
The Referral Domino Effect
I thought that was that but the referral game just started. Three months later, I got an email from an MPhil graduate student at the Institute of Business Administration all the way from Balochistan who told me I was referred to them by someone at Aga Khan University. One more referral. I set the remuneration with slight negotiation and gave the best turnaround time: 8 days in the cold wintry days of January! In March 2019, I got another email request through a referral. This student had referred me to 2 of his batchmates out of which one was ready to pay upfront so I set the remuneration with no negotiation. He mentioned his difficulty with the dissertation and wanted a professional editor, indicating that English wasn’t his first language, and apologized for not being able to phrase his email the right way. I felt so humbled to be chosen as his editor. I retained his English language nuances and only edited where needed as his style was very unique and poetical. This project too was completed in 9 days.
I know the project descriptions might be getting boring so I will quickly move on to say that this was not my last project. The final project I received was in 2019 where I was re-appointed as a lead editor after my previous editorial experience with AKU for their International Education conference (2018). I was asked to review a research report based on an action study focused on 16 newly established Non-Formal Basic Education (NFBE) centers in marginalized communities of district Korangi in Karachi. The project was sponsored by Japan International Cooperative Agency (JICA) and it had to be meticulously edited. This time again, I set my own remuneration which was slightly negotiated but was tons better than my initial assignments with AKU. I completed the project within two months and the report went into publication.
Conclusion
In the span of 2 years, I availed myself the opportunity of working on 5 big projects, 4 of which came from referrals. Here, I must reiterate the power of referrals. My Facebook group, Be Scholar’ed, is now organically and globally growing, and so are my educational consultancy social media pages. However, a Fb page or a website alone won’t work which is why you need to network extensively to build good relationships, differentiate your portfolio, celebrate your failures. You will start to gain more leads.
Learn from my failure to do so in the beginning.
Build a strong & consistent presence on professional platforms — it will not only set you apart from the competition but also help you establish yourself in the part of the industry you want to focus on. Start small. Be willing to settle for less but quickly optimize on your skills and expertise. Continue to build your relationships through referrals and networking skills. These are also what these big scholarship sponsors look for in an applicant.
Learn that success isn’t linear and setbacks are necessary for the larger scheme of life. Remain true to your roots and go out there to own your whys.
Special thanks to Fatima Usman for the co-authoring and proofreading of this Medium story. With a bright future ahead of her A-Levels, her writing prowess is a testament to her critical thinking skills and ability to condense her thoughts.
Open to continued networking & scholastic/career mentoring.
