Hi.
I have just posted once but have been a passive reader for 6 months (ever since I decided to apply for Global Talent Visa), and got great guidance by reading other applicants’ success and rejection stories. SO a huge THANK YOU to everyone who is out there commenting on other people’s applications and guiding them. I had a huge ‘imposter syndrome’ and was very unsure of my self and my profile; I kept changing my mind and my evidences; even after submitting the fee. It took a a lot of effort (and courage) to apply and here is my journey to endorsement:
Paid Fee: 15th Dec 2024 (re-arranged documents once more after this)
Applied: 29th Dec 2024 (during Christmas break)
Endorsed: 2nd Jan 2025 (first day back to office)
DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED:
Letter of References
LOR1: Chairman of a related government body
LOR2: Director of UK-based professional body
LOR3: CEO of my current product-led company in UK
(All letters were physically signed by hand and scanned)
CV:
I presented a comprehensive CV limited to 3 pages, which was quiet challenging as I have no public profile (LinkedIn etc) so it was hard to fit everything into 3 pages. I put links to some of the major stuff I did within my CV.
Personal Statement
For the first half I wrote about my journey to where I am currently and the challenges I overcame to get here. I briefly mentioned all my accomplishments (that were mentioned in the other evidences) to present a holistic picture and an overall story in chronological order.
The next half I explained what I intend to do in UK and my future plans and aspirations. I particularly mentioned how the tech scene would benefit from what I intend to do. (It was almost 50% past and 50% future plans)
Mandatory Evidences
MC1: I showed that I command high salary by attaching screenshots of my last drawn salary, screenshot from Statista (to compare it to national average) and screenshot from Glassdoor (to compare to someone in my role)
MC2: I showed that I am a recognized expert by evidencing that I have been reviewer for an IEEE conference, a reviewer for a high quality journal and an assessor for a national-level project in my field. I screenshotted the invitation emails, my name mentioned on official websites, doi of the published papers that I evaluated.
MC3:I showed that I have been an invited speaker to at least 3 different high impact platforms (spread across last five years). I put in screenshots of invitation emails, acknowledgement letters, stats of attendees etc.
MC4: I showed that I have been invited as a thesis evaluator by recognized universities in my field by attaching screenshot of official invitation letters mentioning thesis title and date.
Optional Evidences:
I chose OC3 (significant impact as employer of product led company) and OC4 (academic contributions)
OC3_1: I explained the impact I had on my current company. Started off by explaining what the company does and its product and then added my mid-year and annual reviews. Also put in screenshot of a letter that showed a performance-based salary increase after 6 months of joining.
OC3_2: Put in my gitlab contributions and metrics from company profile to depict the magnitude and quantity of work I did.
OC3_3: Reference Letter by the VP that mentioned the quantitative and qualitative impact I have had in the company and that receiving an increase after 6 months of joining is not a normal practice and indicates high performance and impact.
OC4_1: Publications in last 5 years (3 high impact journals and 2 conferences) along with the citations and views for each
OC4_2: Proof that my doctoral research was ground-breaking and evaluated and approved by 10 different national and international experts from different countries + letter of research evaluation and acceptance by my supervisor
OC4_3: Endorsement letter by an international expert of my field with whom I had collaborated for several academic research.
NOTES
- Just arrange everything that you did in the last five years and collect all evidence related to it. Once you have everything in place it will be easier to decide which criteria to use and what to present. I discarded a lot of weak evidences and added some new things at the last moment but I had a huge pool that I had created in the beginning to choose from.
- Read the tech nation guideline every time you sit down to work on your application and keep reading the success/rejection stories on this forum to gather ideas and avoid mistakes.
- I used Canva to make my documents and saved them as PDF. It offered much more freedom to edit.
- In each document I clearly presented a context (i.e. what will be included in this document and why). I gave headings and subheadings and used different fonts and colors to highlight different things. I wrote a background for everything e.g. if I presented that I was invited to a certain talk I explained what the event was about and why it was a big deal, and included a link to the event website. I also included external links for every screenshot that I took from websites, in case verification is needed.
- I called up my mandatory references and talked them through the process; I shared the TechNation guideline and specifically informed them how important it is to highlight my individual achievements. After that I received the hard copy on letterheads with signatures and just scanned it in high resolution.
I hope this can be of help and wish best of luck to every applicant out there, and expect that Stage 2 will not be as exhausting as Stage 1 
very impressive application!