Rejection under Talent Route- Need Help and Advice for Appeal

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Dear All,

Firstly, many thanks for the help and support on this forum, I’m a huge fan of this forum. I applied for Tech Nation Endorsement under the Exceptional Talent Route-Business Skills and received a rejection today. I’m hoping to get your feedback and guidance on filing an appeal. Is there enough in the application to appeal, and what do you think are the odds? As per the assessor, I do not meet a single criteria.
Is there anyone who was able to get all the criteria satisfied after appealing in this type of situation?

@scao @ask4jubad @Francisca_Chiedu @Sajjad_Bagheri_Baba @kokomansion @Chaitanya_Bapat @Mideade @artkulakov @May
@alexnk

My Profile
I’m a Global HR Tech Expert and Scale-Up Leader with over 15 years of experience in North America, Europe, and APAC. Out of which nine years have been in product- and SaaS-based companies.I mentor tech start-ups and advise CEOs/Founders on Digital HR Transformation, the HR Technology Roadmap, AI, and Automation.
I’m regularly invited to speak at global conferences on the Future of Work, Digital HR, HR Tech and AI, Digital Workplace & Employee Experience.I sit on Harvard Business Review Advisory Panel and the MIT Technology Review Global Insights Panel and was recently honored to be selected by Gartner as a Gartner Peer Community Ambassador.I’m currently on the jury of CogX Awards 2023 as HR Tech and AI expert.

My three LORs: All of the them have a very strong external profile.

  1. A top 100 HR Tech Influencer who authored six books on AI and HR
  2. A world-recognized HR Tech and Future of Work Expert based in the UK
  3. Chief Product Officer of a HealthTech Company (I supported their client group during my time at the company)

Evidence Submitted

MC (4 Evidences)

Awards-01
a) International Achievers Award 2021 for HR Tech
b) CogX Awards 2022- Known as Oscar of AI - Finalist under two categories: Recognizing Leadership 2022-CogX Expert and Recognizing Leadership 2022- Voice of Gen-Z
Judging-Rest of the World-02: Judge for Stevie Awards for HR and Thought-Leadership APAC and MENA
Economic Times Future-Ready Organizations Global Jury
Judging-UK-03- Judge for UK Global Business Tech Awards
Publications-04
-Article on HR Tech and its influence on Digital Employee Experience
-My Interview in the same magazine on scaling up tech companies
-My Opinion/Interview on AI in HR with UK’s top digital magazine

OC-2 (3 Evidences)
Public Speaking North America-01
a) Future of Work Conference USA
b) HR Tech Summit
c) Reference Letter - Future WorkConference USA
Public Speaking EMEA-02
a) Largest HR Conference of South Africa
b) New Work Festival Germany
c) Reference Letter - New Work Festival Germany
Mentoring -03
a) Mentor since 2019 with more than 120 + hours of unpaid and volunteer mentoring for Canada’s largest not-for-profit structured mentoring program.
b) (Evidence-Letter from the CEO -Canada’s largest not-for-profit structured mentoring program)
c) Mentor and Guest Speaker since Jan 2020 for Women in Technology and Cyber Security Program Cohorts: -Ran tailored workshops on new digital skills and job readiness for one of the largest not-for-profits that develops job readiness in newly landed tech immigrants in Canada

OC-3 (Significant Impact) (3 Evidences)

HealthCheck Talent Tool-01 -For a HealthTech Product Company - A tool to predict employees that may leave the Company-Reference Letter from Chief Information Officer confirming my contribution.
New Employee Onboarding Tool-02 - For the same HealthTech Product Company - designed new employee onboarding tool that raised the employee net promoter score in new joiners and reduces employee turnover. - Reference Letter from SVP of Engineering confirming my contribution.
Automated Requisition Approval Process for Hiring -03 - For a EdTech Product Company - Reference Letter from SVP-HR and Chief People Officer confirming my contribution.

Assessment panel feedback:
The candidate has applied with optional criteria 2 and 3 (work outside of occupation and impact). The candidate has not provided sufficient information to be endorsed for exceptional talent.
The candidate has provided a significant amount of evidence in the form of external links or information, such as images, email communications or video screenshots, without the ability to see the video, confirm audience engagement and evaluate the quality of the content. Other evidence is outside the permitted length of evidence. As per the guidelines, these do not have to be considered. Furthermore,
the majority of evidence is produced by the candidate with letters of support. A lack of external third-party evidence undermines its credibility. The candidate has not shown he has been recognised as a leading talent in the digital technology
sector in the last five years. The candidate has submitted evidence around judging awards, awards he has been nominated or won and publications written in. Much of this activity is not focused on tech but
on HR in a broader sense of digital transformation. Neither the awards nor the publications could be said to be internationally recognised prizes or awards for excellence, specifically in the digital technology
sector. Overall the candidate’s activity is not enough to show someone who is recognised as a leader nationally or at the forefront of a specific technical field in the digital sector.
The candidate has not demonstrated recognition for work beyond the applicant’s occupation that contributes to the advancement of the field. The candidate has undertaken some mentoring, but this
does not follow the guidelines as a recognised programme with selection criteria. Other speaking engagements and publications relate again to broader HR rather than tech specifically. Overall, there is not enough to
show the advancement of the sector.
The candidate has not shown significant technical, commercial, or entrepreneurial contributions to the field as an employee of a product-led digital technology company. The candidate has submitted:
evidence around HealthTech Company, but it is unclear the role of the candidate versus a broader team and whether this project is directly attributable to all of the impacts outlined. The candidate has also outlined work with EdTech on implementing transformation and productivity programs. This is interesting, but it does not show the wider impact on the business and is not compelling as a significant contribution to the field.

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@itzzamit

Sorry to hear about your rejection by TN. It is clear that you have an impressive profile - this is evident from the review comment “… has provided a significant amount of evidence …”. However, I think the deal breaker might have been in the presentation of your support documents. I would recommend that you include snapshot and URL where applicable for each piece of evidence.

On that note, I would like to pan in on the comment below;

It would help is you can get external pieces of evidence to back up the reference letters. This is related specifically to OC3 where all your support evidence are reference letters. The expectation is that as an Exceptional Talent (and Exceptional Promise for that matter) there should be indicators of your impact external to the company/organization where you are engaged. For instance, if you have been interviewed and you shared the details the HealthCheck Tool, the New Employee Onboarding Tool or the Automated Requisition Approval Process for Hiring in a magazine or online tech publication like Sifted, Atomico or Forbes, and your name visible on the page, this would go a long way in addition to the reference letters.

In furtherance, with respect to the quoted comment below, I am really not sure what more a HR professional of your pedigree as an MIT Technology Review Global Insights Review can add to their submission. I dare say though that if you submit an appeal, reminding them that you are a Business Talent and not a Tech Talent should easily make their position fallible.

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@ask4jubad - Thanks, and I appreciate your response. I have added all the relevant links, and there is abundant external evidence to back up the reference letters. I’m a business talent applicant, not a tech talent. I’ll submit a review application shortly. Please let me know if I can DM you?

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@ask4jubad @scao @ask4jubad @Francisca_Chiedu @Sajjad_Bagheri_Baba @kokomansion @Chaitanya_Bapat @Mideade @artkulakov @May
@alexnk
Please help with your advice here:
I looked at the pdf version of the endorsement review/appeal form. I see the text boxes are small. When I try to convert this into word doc, I’m able to expand the box a bit more. Can anyone confirm and advise if this is safe to do? or someone has done that and successfully got rejection overturned. There is just too less space to the respond to their rejection comments. Any help/advice would be great! Thanks

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@itzzamit Unfortunately, one only has the space provided in the appeal form to make your case.

This means that you should really try to appeal the most critical concerns.

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I have no experience about appealing, But I think you can use some PDF editor software like “infix PDF Editor”. Good luck

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this is not allowed. You are altering an official home office document. you are expected to summarise your response.

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Thanks @Francisca_Chiedu for your advice.

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You cannot alter the original form.

But the space is for you to point out specific paragraphs and specific documents for them to re-read your statement. You cannot add additional information to it anyway. So use the space wisely. You can make the text small at an appropriate level then.

Best of luck @itzzamit

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Hi @alexnk @Francisca_Chiedu @Sajjad_Bagheri_Baba @scao @kokomansion @Chaitanya_Bapat @Mideade @artkulakov @May

I received the “unsuccessful” endorsement review decision after 29 days. I was told by UKI that I would be receiving a decision before 18 Sept. Interestingly, until this point (there were 3 edits only), that last of which was on 23rd Aug. As I followed up this morning, there were 2 edits in the afternoon, and I received the decision shortly. Hoping to get some feedback from experts here:

Screenshot 2023-09-19 at 5.31.54 pm
Screenshot 2023-09-19 at 5.31.54 pm826×1112 84.1 KB

  1. Is it worth reapplying? The appeal comments seem to have been very generic and mimics feedback from the original decision.I’m a business applicant, so there is no way I can change this.
  2. What are the ways I can reposition my case?
  3. If I reapply, I’m concerned that this may go to same assessor. I appreciate no-one can confirm if this is not the case and it may just be case that this goes to another assessor.

Any comments, ideas and advice is highly appreciated.

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You can still apply again but address some of the issues of gibe it some time. Some of your evidence are recent. Also it appears you did not organise your evidence well. Don’t give up , just rethink your approach.

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@alexnk @Sajjad_Bagheri_Baba @Francisca_Chiedu @Sajjad_Bagheri_Baba @scao @Chaitanya_Bapat @May @Mideade @artkulakov

I have decided to give it another shot and looking to file a fresh application.
Looking for advice/ideas/tips for the following:

  1. How to show that the events or awards are sufficiently high-profile digital technology events. (Context- I have been a CogX, Stevie Awards, Global Business Awards UK judge but TN says that “the events or awards are not sufficiently high-profile digital technology events to qualify”.)

  2. How to prove that the mentoring activities are as per the TN’s definition of a recognised programme with selection criteria. (Context- TN says that "the mentoring activities, there is not clear enough evidence that the mentoring qualifies under the visa guidelines in terms of the selection criterion and how the programmes are structured.)

  3. I’m a business applicant. What would be better ways to remind the assessor of that for the future application so that they donot mistake me as unsuitable as I donot code.

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Ensure that the event is specifically for the digital tech related topics, more than 100 participants physically, events are well known and may be using variety of solid medias rather than just digital ads, and perhaps well known persons in digital tech were also invited to speak in the event too. This is just some ideas, not limited to.

If you read TN guideline, it clearly says that it has to be structured program. The definition is also defined there. More or less, it has to be unpaid, if you are referring to OC2.
Read more at Tech Nation Visa Guide - Tech Nation

You do not need to remind them actaully. But in case you may want to, you just make clear evidences, CV, and perhaps use personal statement to identify your past and future role in the UK.

I hope this helps @itzzamit