Kindly rate my GTV Exceptional Talent, business skills (Sales)

Hi everyone!

Thank you for all the valuable advice I found here on the application process. I am looking for a feedback on my GTV Exceptional Talent application - Business route. I’m a Sales Director with 6 years of sales experience (last 2.5 years in the UK) and a BSc 2:1 honours from LSE external programme.

I would like to switch from my spouse FLR (M) visa to GTV instead of extending the existing Tier 2 dependent visa (which is expiring mid May) - and continue to contribute to the UK FinTech scene feeling more independent.

I am currently working at a product-driven start up and have accepted an offer to another FinTech company.

Thanks a lot in advance!

Questions

  • Do my profile and evidence look solid enough?

  • do you know if anyone switched from family visa to GTV?

  • if my profile is not strong enough for talent, can they consider it for promise without me resubmitting the application?

  • can I leave UK for a short trip after submitting my application (during stage 1)?

  • I would like to apply for GTV on my second passport (different to the one which has spouse visa now), could that be a problem?

Documents checklist

Personal statement

CV

Recommendation Letters:

LoR 1 / CEO of the company I am currently working at, giving in-depth details of my significant contributions, projects and achievements, my leadership position in the company, high salary and details of how it has contributed to the growth of the company.

LoR 2 / Head of EMEA Sales at my previous company (who is currently a CCO at another product-driven start-up), talking about how innovative I was in creating and securing new partnerships and deals

LoR 3 / CPO of a UK start-up, who was my client at a previous company - supporting the statement how what I’ve done with them was innovative and significant for their business

Mandatory Criteria

  • You led the growth of a product-led digital technology company, product or team inside a digital technology company, as evidenced by reference letter(s) from leading industry expert(s) describing your work, or as evidenced by news clippings, lines of code from public repos or similar evidence.
  • You led the marketing or business development at a product-led digital technology company, demonstrably enabling substantial revenue and/or customer growth or major commercial success, as evidenced by reference letter(s) from leading industry expert(s) describing your work, senior global commercial executives inside the company and/or at company partners/customers, or similar evidence.

Evidence 1 : LoR 1

  • 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

Evidence 2 : Proof of High Salary in HR employment letter (97th percentile) , P60 for the past 2 years.

Evidence 3 : Offer from a new company with high salary and shares

Optional Criteria 1 (Innovation)

Evidence 4. Reference letter from COO of my current company where he talks about all the innovative ways I have used to generate leads, improve marketing and prospecting

Evidence 5. LoR 3

Evidence 6 . Reference letter from a CEO at a UK digital start-up where I have been voluntarily mentoring and created/shaped a new business vertical for their product. Since then it has been the most growing business stream for that start-up.

Evidence 7 . Investor deck screenshots and snaps from social media (company insta) with clients in this new business vertical

Optional Criteria 3

they have made significant technical, commercial or entrepreneurial contributions to the field as a founder, senior executive, board member or employee of a product-led digital technology company

Evidence 8 . Referral letter from Chief Sales Officer at my current company where he details leads, revenue and pipeline growth I brought for the company and how significant it was ( I am top sales and brought the biggest clients to date)

Evidence 9 . As I am not allowed under NDA to show any screenshots from internal CRMs, all I could do is collect screenshots from Slack where CSO announces to the company my deals (3 pages of screenshots)

Evidence 10 . LoR 1 (current CEO) or HR employment letter?

Seems like lots of reference letters as evidence. I’d advise diversifying your type of pieces of evidence as letters alone are not sufficient.
Additionally, as a business applicant if you are going for OC1 Innovation, you may need to show some business metrics, patents, etc.
Evidence 6 seems more like OC2 Advancement.
Evidence 7 should focus on you and how you innovated, ensure you provide context.
Evidence 10, either is fine. Try not to duplicate evidences.

Thank you @Farzad_Sunavala!!!

In my case I’ll have to stick with reference letters mostly, as all companies restrict any sharing of revenue and other financial stats. Do you think the way it is with letters being most of the evidence, it is not worth trying?

  • for OC1 when I need to show metrics, what kind of metrics I could show? Could this be screenshots of dashboards with leads generated and deals?
  • for evidence 6 I will make sure to highlight the innovation of coming up with this new business vertical, rather than the fact that it was done on the mentoring voluntary basis.
  • evidence 7 - this is the weakest spot in my opinion, I am struggling to think of a way to link the innovation directly to my contributions. What could be a good options here?
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Hello,

just curious, did you apply yet?