Hello everyone,
Good luck to all the talents seek for endorsement and thanks for all the visa alumnis for their valuable feedbacks. I have been reading tons of different topics for several months to understand visa dynamics better and yesterday, finally, filled out the gov.uk form and kicked off the process for myself officially.
I will do my best to summarize my case and would like to hear your suggestions about how could I strength it and what is the right format for most of them.
I have been working in Digital Marketing industry for more than 12 years and currently I have been leading 80 people (including data analysts, creatives and digital marketeers) in an international company and working with lots of product led companies as a partner that brings growth to their business via leveraging their products/features for local, international clients digital marketing purposes.
From skillset perspective, I have master degree in both Information Technologies and Entrepreneurship, I have business skills as a commercial lead in digital business, proven track record in turning digital products into revenue as a service, I have performans marketing background (led a team of 30 people) and besides I have technical skills in softwared development, data anaysis and segmentation, insight generation, VR/AR implementations.
My case will be build around MC for Expectional Talent and OC2 and OC3, here is my approach and I really appreciate your honest comments about each part of it:
-
Personal Statement:
My key objective to move UK is establishing a new company that will help product led companies especially in the fields of data analysis, conversational marketing (chatbots), web/mobile analytics services, content creation via digital products etc. Thanks to this approach, UK digital technology sector will be benefit from both generating more sales for product led companies and more tech and data driven service implementations into digital marketing process for clients. Do you have any specific notes that I need to be careful while detailing personal statement from this perspective?
Also I know, I need to explain where am I going to live, is there any specific reason that they ask? Any right approach to answer this expectation? Also do I need to explain that I will move with my family (my partner and our son)?
And of course I will detail this personal statement as it will refer all the story that I am going to build with my recommendation letters and evidence files.
- CV:
I know there is no specific format and I will do my best to summarize my 8 years of experience in performance marketing and 4 years of experience in data management and digital marketing services but do you have any suggestions about sequence, keywords, details about the CV?
- Recommendation Letters:
What I plan is having recommendations from three different perspective: from.a senior executive of recognized digital platform (such as Meta country director, TikTok Client Partner), a senior executive from an international brand (my clients who could recognized my contribution of course) and a C level from a product led company/startup. Thanks to this approach, I believe I can illustrate how they can cross check my expertise from different players in the sector.
Platform and product led company executives could specify my talent to turn their/products and features into business/growth/best cases and client executive could approve that I have extended knowhow about digital products in the sector and leverage them best to reach business objectives.
- Evidence List:
- Generating Growth via etablishing a data management hub for several countries based on a well recognized international digital product, Brandwatch. Generating additional revenue for my company and product-led company, business insights for my client.
I have done several contributions like this but since this is covering more than one country (South Africa, MENA and Turkey regions), generate sales and growth for directly a digital product and focusing on data engineering/analyzing I believe it will be recognized.
I have serious confusion about format on this, I could use a reference letter from my CFO, I could get a reference letter from my client or the product-led company, I could add some proof documents how much revenue that I generate and may be some screenshots from reports/dashboards that we generate but I am not sure how should I curate all of these into a three page single evidence document, any direction?
- Salary level:
I have a competitive salary for the sector but since my agreement and salary documents in Turkey, how should I demonstrate it? I am planning to get a summary document for last 12 months in English that will include salary and bonus details, and I can add a benchmark letter from an independent HR company that specifically focus on our sector. Can I combine these two documents into one pdf as a single evidence?
- I have joined Brandweek conference as guest speaker for one of the sessions owned by Meta to explain how we use their products/features for our clients. Brandweek is the top event for marketing industry in Turkey, and I was at the main stage with 2000 audience in person plus online watchers and watchers of the recordings afterwards.
I have the announcement poster of the session, I have the pictures and recording. So what I plan is writing a short summary to explain event, our session and my contribution, adding announcement poster, pictures and a link to video recording. Is it enough to prove my conference presense?
-
Campaign is a globally recognized magazine in the field and I have an article published in web version of it last year. I will write a short summary to explain Campaign magazine, how they reached me and what the article about, I will add screenshot and link of course, I will add websites stats via inspiring from another alumni. But since it’s in Turkish, so I am planning to send it to a certified translator and get the English version of it to add into this document as well, do you have any other direction?
-
I have been giving trainings in university certified programs to teach digital marketing fundamentals to young professionals. I have started doing this in 2015 and have instruct hundreds of students throughout the years, I have announcement posts, pictures from trainings and I could get a reference letter from the private organization that organize all of those trainings in partnership with universities. Do I need to add any additional info to this evidence? Maybe a quotation from an alumni currently work in a product led company?
-
Jury Duties for recognized awards in digital marketing:
During the last 12 months I was part of the Social Media Jury for Felis awards (one of the most recognized award organizations in Turkey) and Cannes Young Lions Awards Turkey - Digital section (to choose who will represent Turkey in Cannes Global Young Lions contest).
I have the links that will prove my presense in those juries but they are in Turkish, I could translate those links again via a certified translator company, I could add screenshots and links as well and I could get a reference letter from the organizer committee or jury president (who is the same person for both). Also I will again start with a short intro that will explain those awards and I will also mention who are some other people in the jury to enrich its recognition, I think that approach will enough for this evidence right?
- Awards: I have lots of awarded work that I contributed but there is one from last year that I lead a special technical campaign for a product led company (a book listening app startup) to reach blind people via special accessibility feature. This project already awarded in several contest in digital marketing categories and won grad prix awards from several of them. Again, I will summarize the project and my contribution in a short intro, I will add screenshots, case video link (with english subtitles), an online link that has both project details and my name on the projects and a list of awards that project wins with the links. I guess intro part will be the key for this evidence and all the details that I will provide will prove the importance and success of the work, any other suggestions?
8/9. To prove that I will contribute into UK Digital Tech Industry, I could add part reference, part intent letters from product led companies that I will be able to represent in UK when I move, I will use one of those partners in recommendation letters part but I think I could add one or two more into evidence section as well. They will explain how they know me, what their company does, what is our relationship/partnership and how I will contribute to UK digital tech thanks to their products/tools/capabilities. Since this is at the core of this visa type, I believe this type of additional evidences could strength my Mandatory and Optional criteria, any direction about the content of those letters like keywords/messages to focus, questions to answer/emphasize?
- I have my name on the advisory board of a university, I have direct English link, I could use this link, screenshot, explain my contribution with an intro and I could also get reference letter from one of the current Instructors in communication field to prove my contribution.
As a final step (I think one of the most stressful and crucial one) I will need to match those evidences with criterias, here is my plan:
MC: Salary Level, Award, Jury, Reference letters from product led companies
OC2: Conference, Article, Instructor experience, Jury, University Advisory Board
OC3: First case of generating growth, awarded project that based on an innovation, reference letters that mention my contribution to the product led companies’ growth
Sorry for the long post and thanks for reading so far, I really appreciate your comments and contributions, since I have kicked off my application process, I am planning to finalize most of the documents this week and submit all in early next week.
Good luck to everyone in the process once again.