Please help to review my Case and Evidences for Exceptional Talent

Stage 1
1

Hi!

I am going to submit my documents for exceptional talent. So I am here to request some review from the community. Any feedback is appreciated

I currently have 11 years of work experience as a software engineer and have been working with a product-based company for 7 years with major work from leading software development to implementing it.

My application

  1. PERSONAL STATEMENT (exactly 1000 words) - Talked about my experience, and how I got into tech 60%. 15% about why I’m choosing the UK, 15% about the skills and competencies that I’ll be bringing to the UK, and 10% about my plans for the UK.

  2. CV - 3 Pages - Included mostly summaries of my achievements for each company that I worked for, my certifications, etc.

My recommendation letters were as follows:

  1. letter from the Consulting Technical Director of my project A, talking about my work and achievements at work. I worked under him for 1 year on Project A.
  2. letter from the Consulting Technical Manager of my project B, talking about my work and achievements outside of work. I worked under him for 2 years on Project B.
  3. letter from Consulting Technical Manager of my project B, talking about my work and achievements at work. I worked under him for 2 years on Project C.

MC
Document 1 - Labour income increased by 121% over the last 3 years
Document 2 - Academic certificates and certifications
Document 3 - Describing work that I did i.e. led different modules in project A from development to implementation and onsite UAT support for project A for retail net banking product along with news clippings(link) of product go live which I worked on.
Document 4 - reference letter to support document 3 from the Vice President and Global Head of company A.

OC1
Document 5 - contributions as lead to the development of Project B(product B) with a reference letter mentioning my contribution from the Senior Principal Consultant who mentored me during a project.

Document 6 - contributions as lead to the development of Project C(product C) with a reference letter mentioning my contribution from the Senior Principal Consultant who mentored me during the project.

Document 10 - Letter from HR verifying my employment, as well as form 16 (equivalent P60s in India) of the last 5 years indicating my income.

OC3(CONTRIBUTION & IMPACT)
Document 7 - received 4 awards for appreciating my work done that is mentioned in documents 3,5 and 6

Document 9 - Document with my salary info, but focusing on the bonus part and linking it to my performance. Also here I add my performance review results (“outstanding” for several years) with positive comments.

Document 10 - Document detailing my contributions to Project D as lead with code commit history and flow diagram (2 pages) + 1 page reference letter by a Consulting Technical Manager at the same company that witnessed my work current project.

@Francisca_Chiedu @alexnk @Afolabi @May @tundeph @ask4jubad @Maya @alex_james @goonjanmall @femibiwoye and others, hope to get your feedback :pray:

2

Hi @mbhupta for fear of criticality, I would avoid mentioning the word “consulting” or any variant of the word e.g. “consultancy”. Tech Nation guide suggests that work in consultancy is not favored. In your case, it appears to be a hard call since all the letters that you have are from people with consulting in their titles.

More so, all your letters of recommendation are from direct managers in contravention of the statutes of the guide. In my opinion, your current LOR2 and LOR3 should go to OC1/OC3. Document4 seems to be stronger for an LOR but should talk about you in a broader sense of potential impact in the UK.

MC is not strong enough.

All pieces of evidence are internally generated and all focus on your work and less about your impact/innovation (except maybe LOR2 which is arguable.)

Personally, don’t see how the pieces of evidence under OC1 really address the criteria.

I would like to believe that you need more substantive and external evidence as an Exceptional Talent applicant.

3

I agree with @ask4jubad 's comments.

And here below are the break downs, which hope they will help to spot out the improvement areas for your application:

Document 1 - Labour income increased by 121% over the last 3 years

How is it when you compare with industry average?

Document 2 - Academic certificates and certifications

This is usually a weak evidence, (unless its something very specific to business impact). You can merge these in one of your relatedevidence. Otherwise, note them just in your CV.

Document 3 - Describing work that I did i.e. led different modules in project A from development to implementation and onsite UAT support for project A for retail net banking product along with news clippings(link) of product go live which I worked on.

If you are able to demonstrate your name in the news clipping, it would help. Also adding the business impact to this may help.

Document 4 - reference letter to support document 3 from the Vice President and Global Head of company A.

LOR is not a strong evidence. It usually be used to support the other evidence to make them stronger only.

OC1

Document 5 - contributions as lead to the development of Project B(product B) with a reference letter mentioning my contribution from the Senior Principal Consultant who mentored me during a project.
&
Document 6 - contributions as lead to the development of Project C(product C) with a reference letter mentioning my contribution from the Senior Principal Consultant who mentored me during the project.

How do you make sure that these are “innovative”? Highlight those new to the market technology, new ideas, and your responsibility/contribution to the projects.

Document 10 - Letter from HR verifying my employment, as well as form 16 (equivalent P60s in India) of the last 5 years indicating my income.

This should not be in OC1. You can try to merge with Doc#1.

OC3(CONTRIBUTION & IMPACT)

Document 7 - received 4 awards for appreciating my work done that is mentioned in documents 3,5 and 6

Appreciation is not enough. It is best to see figures, graphs, reports, etc which show your business impact.

Document 9 - Document with my salary info, but focusing on the bonus part and linking it to my performance. Also here I add my performance review results (“outstanding” for several years) with positive comments.

This is can be a support evidence to show that you made big impact to business. Not a strong evidence though.

Document 10 - Document detailing my contributions to Project D as lead with code commit history and flow diagram (2 pages) + 1 page reference letter by a Consulting Technical Manager at the same company that witnessed my work current project.

What is the business impact?

Overall comment: You still have a lot of room to improve on your application for the Exceptional Talent route.

I hope this helps @mbhupta

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