Help needed for Appeal review - EP Rejection for PM role

1

Hello, everyone! I’m grateful that I found this community, the collective feedback from this forum has truly helped me prepare for my first Global Talent Visa application. Unfortunately, I received a rejection after three weeks of applying and now I am preparing to submit an appeal.

In brief, I’ve been a Product Manager in South East Asia for the past 5 years and now I’m working remotely for a London-based start up. Only my OC3 was accepted, MC and OC2 were rejected. I attached the rejection feedback.

For the 3 LORs and Evidence, I submitted the following documents:

LOR1: from a co-founder of a tech-driven social enterprise start-up where I led the product development, detailing my career progression and impact on building the social enterprise.

LOR2: from a CPO of Government Tech, I worked with him in a travel tech scale-up for two years. He explained my commercial impact and I was the youngest Senior Associate in detail.

LOR3: from the COO of my current company, he has two exits and is a prominent figure in London tech scene, he also received Global Talent Visa three years ago. He explained in detail my commercial impact on the London-based seed-stage start-up and how my product knowledge is remarkable for someone so young (compared to my peers).

MC1 growth product-led tech company A.pdf

Page:

  1. Reference letter from ex-direct manager from company A (biggest tech in SEA by valuation), detailing my achievements developing product X and receiving significant stock options pre-IPO.
  2. News clippings about product X and company IPO
  3. More news clippings about product X, company’s contribution to 2% of national GDP, and product requirement for product X

MC2 growth tech social enterprise.pdf

Page:

  1. Reference letter from another co-founder (different than LOR1), detailing my contribution and our product received international award Google Play Best 2021
  2. Screenshots of the app and website, Google Play Best trophy and a screenshot of Google Play Awards page
  3. Product requirement and design flow for the products, company metrics

MC3 high salary data.pdf
Screenshots of payslips, benchmarking national salary average (top 1% percentile), and significant pay raise in travel tech due to promotions (also mentioned in LOR2).

MC4 ESOP and awards.pdf

Page:

  1. ESOP certificate company A
  2. ESOP certificate current company
  3. Company awards travel tech
  4. Company awards from company A (regional product-wide function, contribution to IPO)

OC2

OC2.1 mentorship tech talent.pdf

Page:

  1. LOR from structured non-profit organisation B focused on advancing women leaders in their field
  2. Leadership training certificate finished in 2020 (to prove that I am a mentor in organisation B, one should finish the training first before becoming a mentor). I also added another active mentorship certificate from a non-profit organisation C
  3. Collaboration evidence with local women in STEM empowerment organisations to encourage more women to pursue careers in the field. Screenshots of thought leadership articles (medium) and being featured in instagrams, I also provided a paragraph of cultural context about gender inequality in my country.

OC2.2 AI professional community group development.pdf

Page:

  1. LOR from non-profit organisation D (also for women in tech), as a mentee
  2. Screenshots of organising a national-wide AI conference event, this was paid but my contribution outside of day-to-day job (I was a full time student when organising this)

OC2.3 AI research and international awards.pdf

Page:

  1. LOR from prominent Professor in responsible digital innovation, highlighting my commitment to AI safety research (I haven’t had a published article yet so I submit this as an OC2 evidence to advance the field through research)
  2. Screenshots of international merit-based scholarship and awards for undergraduate (engineering) and Master’s degree (management information systems)

OC3

OC3.1 commercial contributions to travel tech.pdf

  • LOR from previous manager detailing contributions, internal documents screenshot for metrics, product requirements, news clippings for products I developed

OC3.2 commercial contributions to current company.pdf

  • internal documents screenshot for metrics, product requirement and flow design, website

Questions

  1. For MC, will below points be enough to appeal about my industry recognition? I do not have evidence to speak at a conference.

  • I have provided news clippings about product releases from reputable sources (Bloomberg, Reuters, etc.) and its impact, but the news clipping did not mention my name directly because I was just a PM, mostly they interviewed VP level or above. However, my LORs and supplemental references already highlighted my contribution and I did lead the project end-to-end

  • The product I developed for social enterprise (LOR1, MC2) received a prestigious industry-recognised awards: Google Play Best 2021

  1. For OC2, I have several questions:

  • [OC2.2] Does a paid part-time role automatically disqualify the evidence? I’m confused because TN guide only specified mentorship and talks should be unpaid, they also mentioned teaching at university will be considered a valid contribution. I think most teaching at university activities are paid, even as a guest lecture?

  • [OC2.3] Can I emphasise that AI paper is evidence of my contribution to advancing the field through academic research (beyond my day-to-day job as a PM)? The reference also stated that the Professor is inviting me to talk and mentor at the newly built responsible AI department.

Any feedback would be appreciated, thank you so much!

rejection feedback
rejection feedback1722×1296 228 KB

2

Hi, sorry for tagging @Francisca_Chiedu @alexnk @hsafra @mbkuru @alex_james @ask4jubad , I noticed that all of you have been helpful in other thread :pray:

I’d love to hear your thoughts on my case, thank you!

3

There are too many reference letters and the newsclippings does not mention your name. Besides your OC2 was paid mentorship. I think there are several weakness in you application, not sure how you want to apprach your appeal as the evidence are not compelling.

1 Like
4

Hi @selinov, I think you should at least try to appeal although it seems you need a second round of application with better evidences. There are two things you need to check:

OC2: the only possible valid evidence for this is O2.1 so I suggest don’t try to push 2.2 and 2.3 evidences but focus on your contribution and recognition thru non-profit organizations, we know they value this so much. Maybe you can try to support this with LOR1 if this social enterprise provided an opportunity to create impact on others “outside your day to day job”.

MC: Push the high salary document since they didn’t mention it in rejection, you could approach “I want to be sure that you don’t miss my salary levels” kind of tone. They don’t accept internal awards as evidence so I think your last evidence for MC missing that part of the criteria. You could try to explain what are those awards again and try mention those are not only internal recognitions as a result of your day to day work. And you could again emphasise on “the product I developed for social enterprise (LOR1, MC2) received a prestigious industry-recognised awards: Google Play Best 2021” although it’s not directly related to you. You should mention “product won the award and I was the lead who enables this product development process”.

Remember they are not evaluating the company or product you developed, they are focusing on you, so newsclips mentioning company is not a public recognition as an accepted criteria, it should be mentioning you or written by you.

Wish you the best of luck.

5

Thanks a lot @Francisca_Chiedu @mbkuru for your valuable feedback! I truly appreciate it.

I will give the appeal a try; I think the evidence is not well structured, so the first assessor got confused. Have a great week!

1 Like
6

Try to appeal to on MC to get the most feedback out of it.

For OC2, since it is paid program, it is just disqualified simply.

So from this, it should help you to be able to build a stronger application next time. @selinov

1 Like
7

You need let people who doesn’t know you believe you are qualified.

LoR is not strong enough to show your influence.