Rejection Appeal: Need advice based on ignored evidence

[TC_145]

Hello!

I recently applied for through the Exceptional Promise pathway on the 3rd of August 2024, and received a rejection on the 14th of August. I would appreciate advice on my intended appeal/anything that can improve any future applications. This was my 2nd application.

My expertise is in DevOps, Observability and Systems Reliability. My MC rejection is centered around my years of experience (6 years since graduation), but I worked at an agency (not product-led) for 2 years in a non-Devops role. I intend to appeal based on the fact that I restarted my career as a DevOps engineer and only have 4 years of experience in product-led roles.

I submitted the following:

1. MC (Recommendation Letters)

   a. Letter from CTO of top fintech startup stating:

   i. My quick rise in the company
   ii. I led efforts that established a new team which improved a key customer-centric metric by over 40%
   iii. My contributions outside the organisation, both before and after I left
   iv. How my skillset will benefit the UK sector

   b. Letter from CEO another leading company (YC accepted):

   i. Former senior engineer that worked directly with me in Company A
   ii. Re-stated my efforts in growing a product via innovation at a product-led startup
   iii. The technical challenges solved that improved core system performance
   iv. My recognised expertise in resolving customer-facing incidents
   v. How these skillsets are relevant to the UK technology industry

   c. Letter from globally-recognized software engineer (CEO at another YC startup, Google Developer Expert):

   i. How they became aware of my work in the community
   ii. My direct contributions to the industry - conference talks, articles and community engagements
   iii. How my skillset is relevant, etc

2. MC (Product-led company)
   a. Evidence of establishing said team, results, and impact of the team (consistent with RLs)
   b. Evidence of improvement of overall system performance by over 80%.
   c. Evidence of improvement of another key metric by 40%.
   d. Evidence of public article which demonstrates how other companies can achieve the same results

3. MC (Conference Talk)
   a. Letter from Conference organizer stating total number of Attendees, and number of attendees of my talk (300 people).
   b. Why I was selected due to give a talk due to previous impact on the community
   c. My other contributions to the community

4. MC (Others)
   a. Merit-based scholarship (Evidence of application and acceptance rate of only 16% with over 5000 applicants)
   b. Evidence of high earnings (Glassdoor comparisons with industry average)

5. OC2
   a. Evidence of conference talk with 300 attendees. This was ignored for only “Youtube views”.
   b. Evidence of technical conversation with 1000 virtual attendees
   c. Evidence of gold, silver and bronze Stack Overflow badges (15k people reached)
   d. Evidence of online course on DevOps monitoring tool with over 1400 learners. Key here is demonstrating mentorship through structured program.
   e. Letter from other Course instructor (who recommended me to become an instructor)

6. OC3 (Exact same evidence for Company A accepted last year, rejected this year)
   a. Evidence of leading a high-impact project at Company B, resulting in direct improvement to customer exp (Design Spec document).
   b. Reference letter from Senior Colleague (Different team)
   c. Relevant evidence from Company A

I’ve attached my pro forma. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. I believe I can put together an appeal on three conditions:

1. Evidence not considered
2. I’m a bit perplexed about how my OC3 was accepted last year but rejected this year
3. The reviewer made a mistake in the first sentence: I applied through Exceptional Promise, not Talent.

[TC_145]

@Francisca_Chiedu @ask4jubad @alexnk I would appreciate your thoughts

[Francisca_Chiedu]

I think there are concerns about your letter which sort of raises doubt about the credibility of the application. I noticed the conference in the mandatory criteria was not acknowledged, you can point that to the assessor. Also if the impact of your work and contributions were undermined, you can make further clarification. The assesor believes you should be accessed as talent because you graduated in 2018. This is not a fair judgement as people don’t land their first roles immediately. If your CV is within 5 years then explain how your have been in tech for five years

[TC_145]

Thanks for the response! The key here is that my CV shows that I worked in a freelance agency after university, before my DevOps role for which I have only 4 years of experience.

[alexnk]

I also feel that the feedbacks are quite subjective and there are potential to be awarded, especially on MC and OC3. Try to point them out again clearly, and hope that the second assessor will reassess them again.

Regarding the number of years in experience, it’s quite difficult.

Please note that, You may not be able to add new evidence though.

[Francisca_Chiedu]

Well, that would still be considered more than five years based on your skills. Unless you wnt to point out that work done in such roles are not eligible but it ks tricky. Its worth giving it a try

[Mariam_Ali]

@Francisca_Chiedu I just want to clarify if someone has like 8 years 6 of them were with an agency but two of them are with product-led companies, so can they apply for promise based on the two years of experience?

[TC_145]

From all the information I’ve gotten so far it’s unlikely. But if you’re able to prove that your involvement was not in any way related to digital technology, you have a better case.

I’ll share how my appeal goes since it would be useful to your question.

[Francisca_Chiedu]

I think this a grey area that needs to be clarified with TN.

[Mariam_Ali]

Thank you @TC_145, I hope your appeal goes well and gets accepted.

[Anurag_Singh]

One key is always ensureing your Evidence points to:

1. Your individual contribution
2. Scale of that contribution with verifiable numbers

You could use this checklist that I just published to plan better. UK Global Talent Visa TechNation Stage 1 Mandatory and Optional Criteria Checklist

[Mariam_Ali]

Hey @TC_145 any update on the appeal?

[TC_145]

Hi sorry, I forgot about this.

It took much longer than expected to get a response to my appeal, but the feedback was that Technation considers my previous experience as “still part of the technology industry”. The other points in the appeal were well-received, but that remained the major blocker on their end.

Thanks for your advice everyone in the thread!