My GTV Application Journey – August 2021

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I submitted my Tech Nation Application on the 9th August 2021 and received confirmation of endorsement as Global Talent from Tech Nation today 10th September 2021. This group has really been very great and helpful…Keep supporting!

Below is a background and what I submitted.

My field is cybersecurity and worked in Telecoms for 10 years. My role involves me working on security risk assessments of products and solutions to enterprise customers across Europe and around the world.

Letters of Recommendation

First – Head of Security Operations Center at an Insurance Company – we were working together years ago

Second – An Associate Partner and Director in a Cybersecurity and advisory firm – worked alongside him when he was assigned to my current team

Third – Letter from my current line manager

Mandatory Criteria
How do I demonstrate that I have been recognized as (or recognized as having the potential to be) a leading talent in the digital technology sector

  1. Outside of your normal day-to-day job role, you led or were a significant contributor to a substantial open source project, as evidenced from the compilation of code commit summaries, repo stars, or similar metrics such as download statistics, where possible.- 3 pages of screenshots of my key contributions on different technology-led industry initiatives in 2 bodies in the telecoms area

  2. Outside of your normal day-to-day job role, you established, led, or were a senior contributor to a large technology-led industry initiative, evidenced through reference letter(s) from global senior project executives. – Reference letters from 2 technology-led Telecoms industry bodies confirming my contributions to industry initiatives – related to first evidence

  3. 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. – Added my work contract and 2 years bonus statements

  4. 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. – 2 reference letters from my ex-boss and head of networks architecture specifications at my current employers

Optional Criteria

OC - 2

  1. Evidence of contributions to an Open Source project – Combination of evidence 1 and 2 under mandatory criteria

  2. An op-ed or news article that exemplifies thought leadership, evidence of mentorship. – 2 op-ed/news articles on cybersecurity-related topics published on widely known sites in my country

  3. Evidence of mentorship (i.e. the sharing or teaching of skills and knowledge). Mentorship should have been done within an organized, structured, and recognized mentoring scheme, which can be clearly demonstrated through evidence. – Screenshots of letters of appreciation/feedback/picture/posters from mentees, and groups that had invited me to do presentations on cybersecurity-related topics, etc.

OC - 3

  1. Letter from an employer wherever applicable. This is in addition to the required letters of endorsement and should be written by another individual - Letter from HR (employment verification)

  2. Documentation on product designs or architecture diagram clearly showing your contribution – 3 pages of screenshots of security guidance specifications documents I have written, a paper on Open RAN Security I led in writing for our Group CEO and others.

  3. 2 reference letters from experienced colleagues who are distinguished security architects in their areas of expertise

My other documents

The personal statement also highlighted on why I wanted to be in the UK – with my main catch topic been around been able to help the UK with my Network/Telecoms Security expertise. I am currently deeply involved in the Open RAN technology topic which is high on the agenda of the UK government.

My CV was 3 pages and its focus was on the outcome rather than output-related.

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Congratulations and thanks for sharing. This is super helpful.

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Thanks…the anxious waiting period was worth it.

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Thanks for sharing this is very helpful

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10 pieces of evidence are in addition to the 3 recommendation letters and cv,am I right? So altogether 14 different documents?

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Yes. 14 documents, each document should not exceed 3 pages.

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Hi, can we relate the same evidence to multiple criteria?

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Thank you. This forum has really helped

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Yes you can but personally I advice you have diverse evidence options.

Disclaimer- this is my personal opinion and not that of TN.

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Thanks @s.dee @Francisca_Chiedu for your valuable comments. Can we provide evidence for more than 2 OC or should we match all the evidence for only 2 OCs?

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The guideline states you can do only two optional. If you have more evidence for another OC you can just add it to an optional criteria that has less than three pages. I don’t speak for technation, but i believe it will only demonstrate that you have made remarkable contributions that can’t be fit into just three criteria, just ensure that you at least list the the two optional criteria where you have compelling evidence.

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Thanks very much for sharing this.

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Well noted Francisca thanks. It would be cool to have more testimonies from people applying under the exceptional promise route.

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If you search the forum, you will find testimonies on Exceptional promise. At the moment, it is pretty much same requirements. The difference is just the years of experience and the time required to get ILR.

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Okay I will do so. I am just joining, and I am at the stage of collecting recommendation letters and gathering documents. Doing the best to understand how to assemble those elements: mandatory criteria, and optional criteria. Thanks Francisca.

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Tech Nation guide gives some pointers on the kind of documents you need to provide.

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Congratulations. This is honestly very helpful