i did go back to the technation guide i think i mistook the recommendation letters as part of mandatory criteria. so i went back and did a bit of restructuring. and heres what i have
heres how I’ve structured my evidence into sets to find out which one is the strongest for the application:
Set 1:
Mandatory Criteria (MC) - Leadership and Significant Contributions:
Project: Platform A (Company X)
Role: Backend Lead
Documents: Project documentation, technical specifications, API documentation, and database management.
Why i feel It Fits: Demonstrates leadership in the development of a key product, highlighting significant contributions to backend architecture and technical aspects
.
Optional Criteria 1 (OC1) - Innovation:
Documents: Published paper, project summaries, and technical contributions. Include peer-reviewed recognition and impact data. i have two other international published papers making a total of 3 in peer reviewed journals with about 13 citations. and on Researchgate i have over 14k reads (i know it doesnt count technically)
Why i feel It Fits: Demonstrates significant innovation in AI, supported by international recognition via peer-reviewed publication.
Documents: Further technical contributions, including architectural diagrams and backend documentation.
Why i feel It Fits: Provides more technical depth to your contributions to a key educational platform.
Set 4:
Mandatory Criteria (MC) - Leadership and Significant Contributions:
Job at Organization B
Role: Software Engineer, UK
Documents: Employment contract, contributions, recommendation letters from our product manager (not my direct supervisor).
Why i feel It Fits: Demonstrates leadership or significant contributions in your role as a software engineer, potentially highlighting projects or innovations led.
Optional Criteria 1 (OC1) - Innovation:
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Documents: All three peer-reviewed papers you’ve published, focusing on innovation and impact.
Why It Fits: Demonstrates innovation through academic research, supported by the newly published AI-based paper.
Why It Fits: Highlights your technical contributions to a digital platform for academic journals, including innovations such as embedded document readers and indexing.
Set 5 (Backup):
Mandatory Criteria (MC) - Leadership and Significant Contributions:
Mentorship Role (Educational Platform)
Documents: Certification, feedback from students, reviews.
Optional Criteria 1 (OC1) - Innovation:
AI-Based Object Detection
Documents: A third iteration of your AI project, focusing on impact metrics (citations, reads, recognition).
Documents: Technical contributions to the research platform.
i am aware that some documents appear in different sets but like i said i want to know which set is the strongest and if you can suggest a better arrangement
I find it hard to follow your documents. Are you planning to use all of them (too many)? Or one set (not enough)? What’s the backup for?
I think it would be helpful if you could choose the best evidence and then people can review it
I agree with @hsafra as it is really hard to follow. Better to include all potential mandatory under mandatory and start assessing which is the strongest evidence. same to follow with other criteria.
so i am applying for Exceptional Talent and this is my revised list of documents
Breakdown of Evidence:
Mandatory Criteria (MC):
3 Projects: i am actively involved as the team lead, leading a team of 6 other developers not including myself, and senior software developer in building 3 web apps and APIs to service both the web and mobile apps for the company, one of them appears in blogs, we have some downloads (though small because of the target niche) as evidenced by blogs and YouTube content (they have a youtube channel with some videos i helped create), demonstrates public recognition of your contributions to its development. I can bring code snippets, github repos as proof, screenshots of databases, api documentation, etc . I built the applications myself.
Medical Journal Platform: A journal platform I built for the researchers at UPTH where they publish their articles. I built the web platform from scratch and has been on for more than 3 years now. The platform’s indexing in Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and Academia. The platform also has an admin panel where they can manage posting and deleting articles and managing volumes, and editorial board. The platform also has the ability to allow users to read and download the article there just like (researchgate). I can bring proof of code snippet, documentation, etc, i even a letter from the editor in chief
OC2: Recognition for Work Outside Immediate Occupation: Though the two. places i mentored/taught in, are relatively small thats why i am tryihng to get an Op-Ed post
Online Mentorship: In this first platform I mentored there, I can provide profs, reviews.testimonials, impact of the sessions, cross section of session history, achievements and dashboard stat counts. etc
Another Mentorship: This Is another mentorship i was part of and was a teacher there, i covered modules, graded students, recorded sessions and uploaded. I still have all of these contents
Alumni Advisory Board Membership: I am part of a body called Generation Initiative where I did a bootcamp and got AWS CCP certified and currently volunteer as an ALumni Advisory Board Member. I had to be interviewed for this position so as to ensure that the board members are of high quality. I have the emails, meeting schedules, feedback documents, etc to prove all this
SIIR-Lab: I am working with a Lab in a University In Texas where I use my skills in python to build models and AI applications to help test their theories and concepts. I have github repos to show the projects as well as email snapshots to show I am truly part of the lab. (I have a letter here as well from the Lab director)
** Currently i am working on getting a post on hackernoon or any op-ed** PS: all of the activities under OC2 are not paid i just did them cos i wanted to give back to the communitiy
OC4: Exceptional Ability in Academic Research:
Peer reviews journals: I have published 3 papers in international peer reviewed journals with about 15 citations. On researchgate, i have over 14k reads but sadly that doesn’t count. I can provide the copies of the actual published journals, the citation data from google scholar, data, screenshots of code, etc
I have two masters degrees and i have letters from both my professors
For MC, TN are looking for evidence both inside your work places and for outside recognition, especially for ET applications.
Your MC looks weak on this point. The projects seem to be company internal.
In what capacity did you develop the journal platform? How is it advancing the digital technology field?
OC2 looks promising, with the caveat you mentioned that the mentorship projects are small. Are they structured? How many people did you mentor?
If you’re looking to create an op-ed post and publish it make sure it’s in a prominent place and that sufficient time has passed between the post and your application or it may be deemed too young.
OC4 - When are the papers from? Were they published in leading journals? Is 5 citations a good number?
Master’s degree work is excluded from OC4 “Research undertaken as part of an undergraduate or MSc thesis does not qualify for this criteria;” Tech Nation Visa Guide - Tech Nation
The letters from your professors may be enough assuming they’re string enough
Hi guys its me again. so i have done a lot of work and arranging my docs and heres what i have so far. i am submitting in 2 days so i just want one more look from you guys. thank you very much
Mandatory Criteria
Evidence of High Salary Remuneration - (i combined my remote earnings from NGN and my UK earnings in an excel sheet and it meets market range)
Expert Assessment and Panel Engagement Role in Digital Technology - My role as a mentor and assessor on openclassrooms.com
Internationally Recognized Awards Documentation - (This one is a bit new as i officially got the award in the last week of Sept after weeks of checks)
Evidence of Product-Led Growth in Digital Technology - my role as a senior developer (Team Lead) for my employers in Nigeria. We have an App on play store and on cloud. I built the entire web and manage the backend and APIs and Github, etc. Secondly i built a journal platform gazetteofmedicine.com for the offical journal platform for UPTH.
Optional Criteria OC2
Thought Leadership Documentation - (i have posts on Hackernoon.com, Dev.to and Hashnode and combined total reads of over 1k. I dont know if they meet the op-ed criteria. i have asked around but no one seems to know a specific platform. so i just use what i have)
Mentorship and Advising Experience - Majorly ADPList with over 1k minutes mentoring people from 10+ countries. Then another smaller one back in Nigeria
Contributions to Industry Initiatives - work with a researchlab in Texas remote with python. and also an Alumni Advisory Board Memeber 2024 in Generation initiative UK. I also did a bootcamp with them for 3 months and got AWS CCP before i applied 2 months later and was interviewed for the alumni board position.
Optional Criteria OC4
Professional Recommendations - Letters from my two professors for my 2 MSc as well as their CV (incase)
International Journal Publications - I have 3 international publications and about 18 citations and over 14,000 readson researchgate (though researchgate is not accepted) but i mean it means omething at least.
Publication Acceptance Certificate - my first international publicatio gave me a certificate of publication
Peer-Reviewed Articles - pdf of my publications with the logos, doi, issn etc
Academic Certification (e.g., Master’s Degree) - my 2 msc cert (i dont know if i should put these, some people advise i do and some advice that i dont)
Recommendation Letters
I got a couple more reference letters from
other profs, director from openclassrooms, thePhD student i work with in Texas Uni, etc
Additional Documents
AWS CCP, CCNA from a CISCO licensed trainer in Port Harcourt, ANDELA SDG participation 2020, KOENIG Data Analysis Training, WEB Flow Certificatin from ADPList, etc
My major issue is i have so much evidence its nearly impossible to fit in a 3 page document. but what i have done is that i have created them in folders so arranged and labelled, you wont have to look for anything
MC: It’s better if salary is at least 2-3x the avg salary of your occupation and significantly higher than market range (if it’s not the case, you should remove salary evidence as it becomes a weak point then). An award won just last month will be too recent and might not be considered valid. You should strengthen your playstore app evidence by recommendation letters, impact of the app in terms of how many people use it etc., novelty of your work, external evidences (such as blogs related to the app, news articles announcing release of the app etc.)
OC2: ADP List platform is not considered anymore by Tech Nation
Too much evidence can lead to the assessor not getting a clear picture of your contributions, so should filter out excess evidences and submit only those which are VERY strong and have little scope of rejection.
@cosmic.wilderness 2-3x higher ? really? ouch but the higher we get the higher 2-3x gets .
e.g. for my case 50k is usual salary but I get 75k .
And directors get like 100k .
Should I exclude my salary ?
Hey @Sharma.shray, > 2x-3x is generally the threshold for successfully endorsed applications. Suppose it’s lesser than that and we need to absolutely submit the salary evidence… In that case, you can find other ways to represent it better saying things like… “my salary is in the top 1% percentile of my country”, “my income falls in the top 1% bracket according to the XYZ economic report 2024”…
Remember that it’s generally considered the best to submit “less” no. of evidences but the ones which are REALLY strong (rather than submitting even a single weak evidence - coz then the assessor is likely to state this weak evidence as a ground for rejection).
TN considers all 10 evidences as a whole, so if your rest of the application is strong enough, you may submit this salary evidence, but if there are more than 2/10 slightly weak evidences, I’d skip the salary one.
Having your salary on the top percentage in your county should be enough. Mine’s definitely not 2x-3x than the norm - hope it was
Make sure to include total comp - base salary, bonuses, equity, etc.
