Please help review my evidence

Stage 1
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Hello everyone, Please help review the quality of my evidence for a global talent exceptional talent category.

I am a cybersecurity consultant on Skilled Worker Visa in the UK. I moved to the UK as a student in Oct 2022 to study a Master in Cybersecurity. I got a sponsorship job in the cybersecurity field (consulting) in August 2023 and have been on sponsorship since then. I finished the MSc program with a distinction in September 2023. Prior to moving to the UK, I worked as a Digital Worksplace Specialist for a fintech company in Nigeria with responsibilities cutting across IT architecture and security, managed many different teams, and had responsibility for supporting some of the company products in the market technically and security-wise, but more as an IT architect and leading many IT teams.

I am planning to apply for the GT exceptional talent category since my outlook is focused on security. I would love to move from Skilled Worker to GT for freedom, and I believe I could get more done and be of more economic value to myself if independent. I am considering below for my evidence:

Reference letter from
(1) CEO/Founder of the fintech I previously worked with in Nigeria,
(2) The CTO/CIO of the same fintech who knows my work in detail, and
(3) the CEO of another startup with a product in market who I supported to get the security requirement of the product certified for the intended market.

Mandatory Criteria:

  1. Evidence of speaking at a high-profile event with a letter from the organizers showing my participation and impact of my presentation.

  2. Command a high salary. I intend to show my earnings in Nigeria up until last year’s September, showing I earn in the top 95 percentile in the country using the Glassdoor salary benchmark, and the share options I have till date in the same company. I believe the UK salary is moderate but cannot be considered as a high salary.

  3. Held significant expert role participating on Panel: screenshot from a startup mentoring program where I volunteered as a mentor and screenshot evidence of startups that I mentored in the program. Also screenshot evidence of mail from ISC2 (exam developer for CISSP) to participate and help them with developing exam questions for one of their in-demand exams.

OC2:

  1. Talk or conferences speaking that had a significant viewership: Live TV presentation on a major TV station where I presented on a security topic, as evidenced by the YouTube link to the presentation on the TV’s official YouTube page.

  2. An op-ed or news article that exemplifies thought leadership, evidence of mentorship: One of my articles in a national dailies on security topics in Nigeria and another newspaper publication from BCS (UK) showing my presentation at a workshop in the UK on identity security.

  3. Evidence of structured mentorship: Two separate evidences, one for a social mentorship program and another for a cybersecurity program in partnership with Cisco. Evidenced by screenshots and letters of support from the organizations holding the mentorship programs.

I am struggling between selecting OC3 and OC4 for the second optional criteria, and will appreciate to get your thoughts on where I stand a better chance:

OC3:

  1. Led in the development of high-impact digital products or services: Letter from the organization showing my role and participation, contribution, and bailout during some of the security incidences the organization faced.

  2. Worked as key engineer in the core product of a startup: screenshot of my work, architectural documentation on the organization confluence site

OR

OC4

  1. Evidence of at least one significant contribution to the field in the form of a peer reviewed journal: Recently published peer-reviewed journal. It was submitted in July but published in November. Quick close

  2. Evidence of awards received for outstanding applied work: Distinction in MSc?

  3. A letter of research from a research supervisor: My MSc program supervisor to support the project I worked on and the solution I developed around Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI), which I have also open-sourced with more than 50 downloads.

Thank you.

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You can tag more active members on here to help you review, but I wanted to add that your current list of recommendation letters seem to all be from 1 country (Nigeria).
Since you are already working in the UK for over a year, I suggest you consider using 1 or 2 C-level executives from your current role as recommendation letters instead. That likely adds more credibility and it’s a trend I’ve seen from most people applying but already working in the UK.

You can move the other recommenders as supporting letters for related evidences.

Also, you might want to go for OC3 as two of your evidences in OC4 do not qualify (Distinction in MSc, and MSc projects do not count according to the official guide).

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You clearly have more edge with OC3 than OC4 as your research evidence is related to your master’s project so it is not acceptable.

Mandatory criteria.
Aside letters from the organiser, what other evidence are you showing. How recent is your speaking engagement.
Also evidence 3, don’t add two evidence as one, separate your evidence of startup mentorship from setting questions for ISX2 exams. You need to demonstrate that because you are an expert in the field you were accepted as a panel to prepare questions or review exams for professional courses in the field. Your salary evidence may not be considered strong as it is often benchmarked with other applicants.

OC2, I think it looks good but don’t muddle up 2 evidence in one when it can serve as another evidence. Again, I hope all your evidence are not close to the timing of your application. Also bear in mind that for OC2, you need to demonstrate that you have advanced the sector.

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@airah, @Francisca_Chiedu Thanks for the feedback.

I will go for OC2 and OC3.

@Francisca_Chiedu My speaking engagement was from 2023. Just the organizer email describing my presentation, the audience, and the impact from their perspective. I might be able to get one of the news media that reflect on the discussion. I once saw it online but didn’t note it down as I never thought I would be needing it.

Regarding the exam development evidence, I have an email from ISC2 where they had requested my participation based on their acknowledgment of my domain expertise. I can also request a letter from them.

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