Hi All -
I received a rejection based on my submission for Talent and am planning on appealing it as I think that some of the criteria and evidence were overlooked and would like to use the feedback to build a stronger second application. I’d appreciate it if I could get the input from our fellow Forum Members who have successfully appealed as well as those who have any feedback or additional insights to give.
My Timelines:
Submitted the Application to Tech Nation: 12 December
Edit: 16 December (I wasn’t really tracking this but this is what I see)
Result from UKVI/Tech Nation with Proforma: 27 December
My original post: Application Review - Digital/Performance Marketer - #5 by cynamanda
**Recommendation** **Letters**
* RL1: Regional Marketing Head at Company - talks about the award-winning campaigns I’ve been credited for, along with the various case studies which I’ve done which resulted in being industry case studies (Google)
* RL 2: Industry Head at Google - talks about the work I’ve done with him and his team over the years, and how I’ve helped them generate case studies which were shared within industry for their product marketing purposes
* RL 3: Principal Product Manager at Company but I’ve known him for much longer - talks about my growth as an individual/leader in the time that he has known me
The recommendation letters were all rejected on grounds of authenticity of letter as well as questioning their expertise in the digital tech field and lack of any thing exceptional or extraordinary described in the letters. My plan to appeal this is:
- Use tech nation ruling pointing that the assessors did not consider the fact that the IP addresses from sender (me) to referrer are different, and they have all been signed using their official work email - which is acceptable under the guidelines
- Point out that the letters are vastly different in terms of content, writing style/language, length etc. proving that they are not written by the same source
- Point them to paraphrased sections where the letters mention that I am exceptional
The objective of this is to salvage the letters. Should I be explicit in showing the IP addresses here? Space is limited in the box hence I have just referred to it in the appeal. Please refer to my screenshot below
MC
**Document 1: Received nationally/internationally/industry-recognized awards**
* In 2023, was cited as the Digital Performance lead for a nationally recognized award - screenshot of the award and my name referenced on website (link to website), I also added in details about the work that I did specifically for the campaign, highlighting what was the contribution from a paid performance perspective (business metric uplifts, media planning)
* Added in other screenshots of national award-winning campaigns where my name is referenced as the digital performance lead also along with links to the relevant websites to show that I’ve been recognized in those awards
* I also show industry-recognized case studies - Google Case studies which they use for industry best practices referencing - I box and highlight where I am quoted on these & have three examples over the period of 2021-2024 & link this back to how it was mentioned in RL 2
**Document 2: Commanded high salary or remuneration**
* RSU grants over the years (show current value of these grants)
* Pay over the years (graph) > show the growth in absolute & % terms
* Pay in comparison to standard market rates - [Payscale.com](http://payscale.com/) & Michael Page
* Show that I command high salary based on standard cost of living in country (this is based of stats from the department of statistics as well as the central bank)
**Document 3: Letter of Support - Head of Platform Growth at current company**
* Talks about my leadership and talent at my current role, how I lead multiple markets and a team of 6 as well as my contribution to the role and potential contribution to the UK digital economy
* She will also talk about the impact I’ve driven via large scale projects - which is essentially referencing the projects mentioned in document 8 & 9 under OC 3
**Document 4: Mentorship/Speaking gigs**
* Mastercard structured mentoring program which aims digitalize and support the growth of 100,000 small businesses in the country, with a particular focus on women-owned and women-led businesses. The program seeks to address various challenges faced by small businesses in the country and elevate women entrepreneurs to thrive in the digital economy
* I added a link to show the press release from Mastercard in the text
* Show screenshots featuring the structure of the program, learning modules & the selection criteria for mentors
* Show my profile page on the platform > call out where it says I am a mentor
* Show invitation (whatsapp screenshot) and pictures from a panel where I was one of 6 selected mentors for one of their in-person events where I was asked to facilitate discussions for one of the breakout groups
* Mentorship/speaking gig with private university (Asia Top 40 in QS Ranking) students specializing in marketing
* Review/letter from the professor of marketing at a private university where I came on to mentor marketing students as part of their final year project (this is currently still ongoing)
* Show mentorship structure outline for final-year students (screenshot)
* I was also asked to give a lecture to their final year students as an industry expert > will show pictures
* ADPList - screenshot of platform, review screenshots + 1 testimonial from mentee I had multiple sessions with
My plan to appeal MC is to focus on 2 things (given limited space):
- Draw the attention to the Google Case Studies and pull references from Leading Industry Experts from my Letter of Recommendations as well as Letter of Support
- Re-establish that Document 3 is in fact written by a leading industry expert, by pointing towards her designation, career history as well as title and therefore should be accepted
- Draw attention to the tech nation requirements that they should re-look document 2 as they only took one part of it salary and deduced that it does not show “scarce or rare skill” but argue that in totality, the story that the piece tells is that when combined (salary growth, RSU’s granted over time, as well as comparison to the market) does tell a compelling story that is in line with their requirement “You command a high salary or other remuneration for your services, as evidenced by commercial or employment contracts with salary information including any bonus and equity options and history of earnings.”
I would have liked to appeal the dismissal of the Mastercard structuring mentorship programme as they pointed out that one thing which was missing was showing that mentees also had to be selected (I unfortunately missed this and therefore have not added this in but would put this in a re-application).
Please refer to the screenshot below. Not sure if I’m trying to achieve too much in this section for the appeal? Feedback here would be great!
OC 1
**OC1 - Innovation**
**Document 5: Strategy**
* Outlined market insights, situation and problem to solve
* Clearly call out what the innovation (strategy) was in a separate section (this links to the problem that was highlighted)
* Show the strategy on a page for market for one of the businesses
* Letter of support from current manager attesting to the strategy - she covers the work done in document 7
**Document 6: Innovative Marketing Campaign**
* Outlined an innovative marketing campaign which was carried out in 2022
* Call out why this was innovative: utilizing a varied media mix which involved automation, creative tech as well as show uplift in business metrics (e.g. transactions, GMV)
* Show how parts of the campaign were used as part of a Google case study (screenshot of case study) as well as sourcing a quote from Google team
**Document 7: Innovative Search Campaign**
* Outlined an innovation I did for the way the company handles/views search marketing as a channel
* Outlined what I did, what was the change/innovation that was done, explain why this was important
* Showing results from before and after - changes were made (Incremental increase in transactions)
Again, if you refer to the proforma feedback below - for this section, given limited space, my plan is to appeal on a few points. What I have selected is:
- Document 6 Innovative Marketing Campaign - the proforma makes reference to only one section of my document (I suspect this was because this section had screenshots of creatives) and deduced that what I did was not innovative based on that one thing. However, my plan is to redirect them to the section that explicitly mention that the innovation takes into account a combination of strategies which range from creative technology, scaling videos via AI generation (which was not yet common during that time) and show the ultimate impact it had. Additionally, I am going to argue that the innovations I did were aimed at driving up transactions for merchants within a strict 90 minute window which I do belive was overlooked. This ends with clear linkages to third party corroboration (letters of reference as well as a Google Case Study)
- Document 7 Innovative Search Campaign - the proforma does not talk about this in detail. I plan to use the appeal to see if I can get more information on this. However, I will use this to point them to sections where I clearly state what the innovation was (how this was not a regular search marketing campaign that is common place for web first companies) and redraw their attention to what the change in architecture was and the before/after screenshots. I plan to also corroborate this by pointing the assessor to show where this was mentioned in one of the Letters.
I felt that it would be easier to delve into these two documents rather than try to appeal Document 5. Please let me know if you have any other thoughts.
OC3
**Document 8: User Growth for Platform**
* Talk about how I strategized and made budget calls on investment across platforms to help reach the growth goals of company > show how strategy was done
* Show screenshots of externally public data on app downloads (Sensor Tower) as well as internal screenshots of dashboard to show growth of new platform transactions > with supporting quotes from annual report (linked & cited) & a quote from MC3 highlighted here to reinforce it
**Document 9: Creative and Product Scorecard**
* Talk about how I embarked on implementing and building a product and creative dashboard, which resulted in time savings, media savings and growth in transactions
* Show screenshots of said Dashboards
* Show how the application resulted in measurable impacts in a specific market - growth in transactions from one platform and reduced CACs within one quarter as a result of the dashboards
**Document 10: Letter of Support from Head of Loyalty to talk about and verify the results for Document 8 & 9**
My plan to appeal OC3 is to draw back the assessor’s focus on a few things:
- Document 8 - Highlighting the technical skills of the work I did in this evidence is in fact compelling and moves away from industry norms (venturing away from industry standard of measuring CAC), showing that the document did in fact include external verifiable sources (Google Playstore & Sensor Tower) and also had reference from MC4 (leading industry expert) who verifies in her letter that the methods were highly advanced and new.
- Document 9 - Showing how the dashboards were compelling for many parties, the commercial impact that it had and references to the significance of it from several letters in the application.
- Document 10 - Re-emphasize how the writer is in fact a leader in the digital tech field by re-directing assessor to look at where he states it in his letter as well as on his CV. He talks and corroborates the information in Doc 8 & 9.
Would you recommend I pull out quotes? Or direct them to the sections as I have done below.
Sorry for the super long post! But I do feel that my original application had more than enough information (in fact, potentially too much). Based on the additional feedback (which I don’t think I can address due to the limitations of the form, I also note this:
The applicant has also cut and pasted multiple screenshots onto a single page which also does not meet the submission guidelines. Applicants are required to submit a maximum of 3-pages per document and 10 documents in total. Where each screenshot is actually a page, we are not required to assess the evidence beyond 3 pages. Many parts of the evidence have been shrunk to such a degree that they are illegible even upon reasonably enlarging them. It is incumbent upon the applicant to submit evidence that is readable.
So with regards to this, my plan is to see how I can re-direct the assessors to things that they should look at. With a note that the screenshots all came with explanations. However the news on where each screenshot is actually considered a page is new for me as I haven’t seen this in the forum before (as they are primarily diagrams or slides as illustrative reference).
Regardless of the outcome, my hopes are to at the least get a good set of second feedback for the appeal.
Thanks in advance!
