Hi, all. @Francisca_Chiedu @alexnk @alex_james. I’d appreciate your advice.
I applied under the exceptional promise route on Feb 22nd. And got a rejection on Feb 28.
My documents.
Letters of documentation:
- Co-founder and MD at a fintech start up I worked at.
- Co-founder and CEO at product-led startup I worked at.
- CTO of a health-tech company.
Feedback from Tech Nation
Assessment panel feedback:
The candidate has applied for the Global Talent Visa (GTV) through the Exceptional Promise (EP)
pathway aiming to demonstrate Mandatory Criteria (MC) as having recognition as an emerging leader of
a technology field, electing to evidence meeting Optional Criteria 2 (OC2) and Optional Criteria 3 (OC3)
and demonstrating they are at an early stage of their technology career.
After careful review, it is the opinion of the assessor that the candidate does not meet any criteria for a
GTV.
Mandatory Criteria.
Regarding MC, the candidate’s career history does not suggest any roles or accountabilities that would
be considered exceptional recognition by themselves. Their references are supportive but show signs of
possible common authorship. Their examples for AAAA are respected but demonstrate nothing
particularly significant regarding recognition. Getting a pay rise is only evidence of being valued by
one’s employer. We acknowledge their hackathon team win for the best education-related project.
However this is not to the standard of an EP awardee. On balance, MC is not met.
Documents
- Hackathons.
- a. In one with over 180 participants, I was selected to help speak to and guide the participants on how to structure their software presentations and how to present their pitch. I put the congratulatory email and photo of me speaking to the participants on stage.
- b. I participated in another with over 100 participants my team won best educational project with link to it on devpost.
- Facilitating at Devfest. Devfest has over 3500 participants and I volunteered there and helped in the breakout sessions. I attached a letter of reference from one of the organisers.
- Current company project where I compiled screenshot of git commit history graph showing me as the top contributor, screenshot of me listed as lead engineer, screenshot of me listed alongside others as having brought in revenue through our work, two screenshots of an external client recognising and praising my work.
- Letter of reference from my former engineering manager now Vice President of engineering at another company corroborating my claims in 3.
I can add that if the references show signs of common authorship, it’s because I shared the template with the referees so that can follow tech nation guidelines. I did not author the letters. The letters also have docusign trails attached to them as I explained this aspect to the referees ahead of time.
I got a pay raise but I also brought in revenue for the company and this was not mentioned. The fact that I led the growth of project AAAA evidenced by git contributions and reference from former manager was also not addressed.
Optional Criteria 2
Regarding OC2, their volunteering at DevFest is respected, but this is not an example of field
advancement. Mentoring via Andela does not qualify because Andela does not have a track record of
field advancement. And their Google Student Club is not an example of field advancement. Their Stack
Overflow profile lacks the badges & track record typical of an EP awardee. OC2 is not met.
Documents
- Screenshot of my stackoverflow profile showing I’ve reached and impacted 133K people with other badges. Screenshot of my github profile showing my contributions. Screenshot of an open-source project I contributed to with over 30K commits and 71K forks. Screenshots of my other notable personal projects.
- Screenshot of mails from Andela acknowledging me as mentor and assigning me a list of 50 engineers to mentor. I mentored with Andela twice and mentored over 100 engineers in a structured with selection criteria, and also showed some of the engineers I mentored working as software engineers. Andela is an American global job placement network for software developers. It has gotten funding from several organisations including Chang and Zuckerberg Initiative and even got a visit from Mark Zuck himself. They have connected thousands of software engineers in Africa to global opportunities and helped kickstart the careers of lots more through their free access to courses on Pluralsight and Udacity. Does that not qualify to field advancement?
- Screenshot of flier listing me as a speaker in a tech event for the Google developer student club speaking on breaking into tech from non-tech backgrounds with over 400 attendees long after I had graduated from school. Screenshot of me speaking during the workshop. Screenshot of me listed as facilitator as Devfest with over 3500 participated, screenshot of my AWS developer Associate badge that I won after passing the exam.
Optional Criteria 3
Regarding OC3, what is challenging is that the only supporting evidence and examples are via
reference letters (i.e. BBBB & AAAA). Git Commit history is not evidence of impact - only code
commits. Due to this, OC3 is not met.
On the basis of the above, we do not endorse this application.
Documents
- Screenshot of my salary contract(actually, promotion letter) with my current company compared with Glassdoor and Payscale showing I am well above to top 1% in my location which is as result of my impact in my current team. No mention of this in the reviewers comments.
- Screenshot of the graph of commit histories of git repos of my first company showing I am the top contributor of the two products I worked on. I attached a letter from the director of the company where he detailed my impact in great detail that surprised me.
- Screenshot of graphs of commit histories of git repos of my second and current company showing I am either the top contributor or second top contributor with some other documents from MD3.
This comment: Git Commit history is not evidence of “impact” - only code commits. Due to this, OC3 is not met., Is he saying that the commit graph isn’t acceptable and he wants to see individual git commits?
Any help is appreciated in filing an appeal to get a second look and explain the evidences in greater detail if I didn’t do that in the evidences.
Overall, I am a bit confused as I’ve read extensively about applicants that were endorsed with same set of documents. It also looks like the reviewer focused solely on weak evidences and didn’t mention the others that could have helped my case or perhaps I have not explained the evidences in a way that would pass across the intended message.