Hi all, I just got endorsement for talent. I started preparing since August and I’ve learnt so much from this forum so just wanted to share my takeaways here.
My background is business applicant with 7 years in digital product company. I applied for OC1 and 3. Below is the learnings I had after reading posts here and talking to alumni with similar background:
- Focus on the industry impact - it’s not a performance review when we just talk about contributions to the company. Any impact should be broadened to the industry level if possible (e.g. is the solution beneficial to other sectors in the industry? is there any advancement in the efficiency of the overall value chain?)
- Quantify the impact as much as possible - like many posts already said, storytelling is the key. Nothing can be more straightforward than explicit numbers. Also the numbers should be quoted from reliable sources - either 3rd party report or letter from industry expert.
- Believe in yourself - this might be the most important one. Majority of my evidences are during 2020 to 2021, which means I potentially could have applied then. But I just constantly feel I’m not good enough for ‘global talent’ and embarrassed about asking people for recommendations. In fact the process - though painful indeed, is helpful for my job search and overall career plan too. If you are like me, could just try give it a go, it won’t hurt.
Few learnings on documents arrangement:
- Help Tech Nation tick box - I added a small table at the beginning of every evidence listing 1/Evidence type by page (report/internal document/ref letter) 2/Objective (to prove + one of the criteria directly pasted from tech nation guide) 3/Relevant recommendation letter (I make sure every evidence can be referred to at least 1 letter)
- Explain everything - I added hyperlinks to every clips and names mentioned. For each clip I added one sentence highlighting the key information. Also at the beggining of each evidence I explained that the hyperlinks are only for verification if they want, all key information is already embedded in the document.
- Make every statement with something to back up - most of my evidences structure is self-written statement explaining context + external report showing impact + reference letter confirming my contributions. This is because I don’t have any public evidence that directly shows my name, so I’m combining these 3 to make up. It does seem to be working for me, but still would suggest avoiding using only self-written statement or report without your name, or only reference letter. The goal is to have external reliable sources to clearly state what did I do and what’s the impact.
Most of the things above is what I’ve learnt from the posts in the forum. I cannot thank this community enough so just would like to share here. Wish everyone a successful application!