I applied for the Global Talent Visa Stage-1 Tech Nation Endorsement on August 4, 2024. Unfortunately, I received a rejection email on September 1st, 2024.
Need help for appeal/review.
I submitted the following documents:
Personal Statement
C.V
Recommendation Letters (3 Documents)
Mandatory Criteria (6 Documents)
Optional Criteria - OC1 (2 Documents)
Optional Criteria - OC3 (2 Documents)in my previous application they accepted this OC3 docs
For MC, I submitted
5 letters
5 reference letter
Recommendation letter from the CEO of a UK edTech startup where I worked for a year;
Described, how …
he knew me for more than a year after I relocated to the UK to work for the company under a skilled worker visa.
I led several initiatives that resulted in revenue increase.
I led the design and research of an innovative solution that created a new acquisition channel for the company.
I contributed to the growth of the user base through several initiatives.
I contributed to the UK digital economy sector and how I will contribute in the future.
Recommendation letter from my university professor who is also an angel investor and CEO of several tech companies.
Described how …
he knew me for more than a year.
I won a competition in entrepreneurship and product/ business development that he invited me to participate in.
he appreciated & acknowledged my leadership and product design skills based on winning second place in the competition and the amount of funding that my team received.
he appreciated my exceptional skills.
I will benefit the UK’s digital economy and what is my plan for the future.
Recommendation letter from a Lead product designer who had been my mentor years ago. He is a UK and Australia global talent holder working in top companies like Intercom.
Described, how …
he appreciated & acknowledged my product design skills
he is aware of my contribution and leadership as a designer through leading several speeches on various platforms.
he is aware of my contribution and leadership as a designer through mentorship and leading junior designers.
I contributed to a project he has invited me to.
I will benefit the UK digital economy.
My Performa is attached
I also attached my appeal.
Could you please help me with my proposed appeal?
Not really. It appears to me that the judgment is very subjective and I have already tried 3 times and have invested so much time and money. Additionally, I have no idea how to craft my future evidence for the next attempt as they change their minds easily and feedback seems unreliable.
Hi @Mahshid_Atabaki sorry about the outcome despite the multiple attempts.
It looks like your main evidence backing your self-claims were reference letters which are insufficient proof for TN. If your application is largely self documented plus letters, it’s very tough to cut the mark.
Competitions won for startups but without any further executional quantifiable impact and single one-off speaking events are also often flagged.
Since you have tried a few times, I would recommend you combine the feedbacks received and work on the gaps highlighted - with the limited info shared above it looks like lack of strong external evidences. So you may want to build on those if you still want to try for this visa. Perhaps participate in speaking events, panels, interviews, mentorship in the digital sector if possible for next few months.
Thank you for your feedback. I deleted some of the documents from here since I received no response.
My evidence is a balance of self-authored and reference letters.
For MC I have mentorship evidence, a high salary document, and a contribution to the growth of the company in revenue and user base increase and to the marketing of a company through an increase in ranking and SEO, award won for a product competition. All include screenshots of analytics, news, and reposts. half self-authored half reference letters. They rejected all. one of my letters shows my contribution to revenue increase and it was a reference letter.
For OC3 previously I submitted 2 reference letters + high salary documents. They approved but next time they rejected it because I removed one self-authored evidence. They said it shouldn’t be only reference letters. I could write it myself I just changed it to a reference letter for more credibility because previous feedback told me so.
For OC1 have one self-authored and one reference letter. They rejected both.
Previously submitted OC2. The first time they approved. On the second attempt, they disapproved it, so I decided to focus on OC1.
I would like to share some feedback that might be beneficial to you.
Storytelling : it seems your evidences are not well organised, illustrating continuity in your career; they highlighted career break wondering what your are currently busy with! they need to learn, how you started, why you started, what you achieved, what future plans,?
Distribution of evidences: even though in the guide its mentioned 2 evidences for each criteria to be submitted at least as minimum, I always advise applicants to submit min 3, as some criteria may be weak on its own. For example, salary is a weak one unless supported by strong evidences. distribution of 6,2,2 is risky to me, i wouldn’t follow this structure.
Assess each criteria independently: i understand your frustration of not passing for the third time, however, if you look at OC3, you depended solely on reference letters, whereas you should support those reference letters by other evidences such as screenshots, and diagrams, numbers, ''The Work" as letters only are not sufficient,
Number of reference letters: 5 letters sound a bit too much. for each criteria you may allocate one reference letter + additional documents. Having more than 1 reference letter in a criteria is not a good strategy to approve your eligibility. Provide the letters in addition to works related to the criteria. blogs, wins, impact, achievements.
Assess the application s a whole: As I recommended you assess the criteria independently, seeing if you only have these 3 or 4 evidences are they strong enough? and then assess your overall application and ensure all evidences are related combined and supporting each other. For example, recommendation letters content is to explain in depth your eligibility for mandatory and optional criteria. Reference letters, to support that specific criteria in addition to the overall application. Personal statement is to explain all evidences and why you think those are eligible.
Please note that Tech Nation will assess your new application independently and they might not refer to your previous applications. Try to follow the above and hopefully you will receive a positive outcome.
in addition to these highlights, read the tech nation thoroughly and the posts in this forum many many times, this will help you in identifying strong evidences and to avoid what might weakened your application.
My feedback is based on the feedback provided, and if your willing to resubmit, take your time doing it, share your evidences, and collate feedback.
Thank you for your feedback. Storytelling: Yes currently I am not working and I mentioned what I am planning to do next in my personal statement. There is no career break though.
Distribution of evidence: Yes because in previous attempts my MC docs never got accepted I put an emphasis there by providing stronger evidence. I supported high salary with 5 other documents so it is supported.
Assess each criteria independently : They include lots of screenshots, graphs, and my work. They are just written by a senior executive of the company rather than me otherwise They contain screenshots, diagrams, and numbers. The problem here was that I should be the author of one of them and my previous attempt made me make such a mistake.
Number of reference letters:
MC: 2 reference letter
OC1: 1 reference letter
OC3: 1 reference letter
Previously Tech Nation gave me the feedback that my letter should not be self-authored and that I should provide more reference letters. That is why I increased my reference letters and I believe 5 is not a lot based on the previous feedback.
Assess the application as a whole : all the content is very well connected I double-check the story ask help from previous global talent holders and try to include data and numbers in evidence.
My personal statements point out to every letter clearly.
I believe the only reason I got rejected is that most of my evidence is from my recent work. I am not a senior and generally not good enough right now to get the visa. Otherwise, my letters are very well-structured. I can not show it here but from feedback, I know the structure is ok.
if you don’t feel there’s any takeaway from the feedback then it may also not be worth spending more money to reapply …