Hi all,
I hope you are well. I would really appreciate your feedback and suggestions on my profile, which I plan to use for my Exceptional Talent application.
Here is a summary of what I have included in my submission:
Letters of Recommendation:
Principal Product Manager from a FAANG company
Senior Engineering Manager from a previous role (Kind of FAANG company)
Professor who supervised my external research project (highly regarded with a strong Google Scholar profile)
Mandatory Criteria Evidence:
Received two European awards for a research project integrated into a company product. One award credits me by name; the other credits the company (Both are given on same project and product)
Won a European Institute of Technology (EIT) Digital Award, which required demonstrated impact across multiple digital startups. (EIT is part of the same ecosystem as Tech Nation and supports digital innovation.)
Led a high-impact project at Meta focused on user acquisition, retention, and ARR growth. Supported by a detailed reference letter and a third-party audit report (anonymized but validates outcomes).
Evidence of high remuneration, exceptional performance, and selection for a High Skilled Worker visa from another EU country.
OC2:
Speaker at prestigious international conferences, including PyCon and the Data Science Festival, with a track record of public speaking over the years.
Selected for multiple mentorship programs by Google and Microsoft. Also currently mentoring through a Tech Nation-recognized accelerator. All mentorships are non-profit and run for at least one year. Historical mentorship experience also included.
Invited judge for the UK Digital Awards and confirmed as a judge for an upcoming global digital awards program. Additionally accepted by another judging body, though I couldn’t participate due to scheduling conflicts (included acceptance documentation).
OC3:
Contributed to stopping a major cyber theft incident that was publicly covered but without individual names (e.g. TechCrunch). One of my reference letters outlines my role in detail.
Played a key role in improving a VR product at Meta, increasing user adoption by 50%. Evidence includes internal documentation, a recommendation letter, and public VR blog mentions.
Led the launch of a major VR application at Meta, with support from a Technical Program Manager’s letter and public release notes. User impact is evidenced through Meta Store reviews and external blog coverage.
Please let me know if you have any suggestions or see any areas where I can strengthen the evidence or narrative. Your feedback would mean a lot as I finalize this application.
In MC, if the 2nd award is for the company, what’s the connecting proof to you for this award without mentioning your name?
for the awards, do establish the stature of these awards, selection criteria and if there was any evidence in written about how the awardees were selected, any picture would be great too.
OC2: ensure mentorship programs are outside of your employing organisation and outside of your job in structured mentorship programs with selection of mentees. You need to also validate the impact of your mentorship on advancement of the field: quantifying this as much would strengthen the claims.
only acceptance of judgement or future judging events aren’t strong enough to be counted.
OC3: you need to strengthen these by quantifying impact of each of the projects you mentioned. The impact should be shown in terms of core metrics and how your contribution impacted them. Reviews and blog coverage impact is subjective. First and last evidence need quantification of impact and validation of it.
We presented the same project into which I integrated my research for multiple awards. We won two awards from different international institutions. One of them credits our team members by name which include my name, while the other only mentions the company. To clarify my personal contribution, I have attached a separate endorsement letter from an Engineering Manager and a well-known researcher which worked in the same company but is not my direct manager. I hope this will be sufficient to clarify things.
OC2:
All my mentorship activities were outside of my employment. These are year-long programs with defined responsibilities, which I’ve included by copy-pasting from their official websites. While the programs may not have a formal outline or curriculum or structure, they do specify a clear set of responsibilities. I’m not sure how best to present the “structure” beyond this, happy to hear your suggestions.
OC3:
I have included quantifiable metrics of success and impact, along with public validation. I also referenced part of my recommendation letter to support one of the OC3 examples. For a major release, I have attached a separate reference letter that outlines my contribution and impact. As 3rd-party validation, I have included metrics from the Meta Store reviews, which functions similarly to the Google Play Store. However, I am unsure how much weight the VR vlog mentions will carry.
Is there anything else I could improve or present more clearly?
You must have quantified impact in OC3. Any subjective impact will not meet the guidelines. You can get a letter from the mentorship programmes specifying a program structure is possible. Without program structure, the mentorship won’t meet the guidelines. You can also showcase how the year long program was split into a program structure if you followed one. If they were just 1:1 mentorship programs then they may not qualify. Also all mentorship programs should be offline so pictures are great supporting evidence too. Also like I mentioned all mentorship should point to how it advanced the field.
Hi Omer, your application has a solid foundation. However, there are specific areas that need immediate attention based on recent rejection patterns I’ve seen. Your mentorship evidence needs strengthening - the programs must demonstrate clear structure with documented selection criteria and quantifiable impact on field advancement, not just participant satisfaction.
For your Mandatory Criteria, the company award without your name creates a credibility gap that needs addressing. For Exceptional Talent, the expectation generally is that you received the award under your name. Your workplace receiving an award without you being mentioned publicly won’t make the cut. Your high remuneration evidence should also explicitly detail how your role went beyond routine responsibilities and created exceptional impact in the digital technology sector. What does that mean? Is Omer known at his workplace for anything beyond what his job actually entails. Have you done any additional contributions or innovations which got you attention within your company?
Your OC3 evidence requires more concrete quantification. Meta Store reviews and blog mentions are subjective validation that recent assessors often discount. Focus on providing hard metrics - specific user adoption percentages, revenue impact figures, or technical performance improvements that can be independently verified. Add reference letters corroborating this evidence.