Requesting Support to Appeal for Endorsement Rejection ET / Business route applicant

Stage 1
1

Dear Forum Members

My Endorsement at Stage 1 for ET / Business applicant has been rejected due to not meeting MC, OC1 and OC3 Criteria. Allow me to provide a summary of my application, the feedback from the assessors and my questions.

I would really appreciate your support and guidance to make an appeal.

I am top sales for an edtech digital product at public company. I support large enterprises to invest in their employees upskilling to keep organizations relevant. I submitted my case showing the impact I create to my customers and through my innovative sales, the support in innovation of our product. This is supported by sales results of my digital product.
For the visa application, I submitted the following documents.

  1. Filled complete application form
  2. 3 page CV
  3. Personal Statement
  4. LOR 1: President of my current company. (At the moment she signed the letter she had quit the company)
  5. LOR 2: Head of Region for my previous employer. Subsidiary of a fortune 100. He was the business head for over 12 markets.
  6. LOR 3: Managing Director at a reseller partner in one of the markets I have made the most impact.
  7. MC1: High Remuneration Evidence.
  8. MC2: Screenshots and youtube video (link) of me speaking at 4 events.
  9. MC3: Evidence that I am the top sales globally in a company of over 200 sales.
  10. OC1-1: Proof of a project of how I supported the upskilling in AI for a semiconductor company.
  11. OC1-2: Pictures of all the activities in one country showcasing the MOU’s and partnerships I have signed to support the growth of the company in one market.
  12. OC1-3: Show the results in overachievement of sales in the company’s newest product supporting the growth and innovation at my company.
  13. OC3-1: Growth Impact I’ve had in the 2 new markets I’ve opened in my company.
  14. OC3-2: Impact of the largest deal in the region with a bank that what so successful that they’ve been mentioned in our earnings call.
  15. OC3-3: How I worked closely with an organisation in their upskilling that they were awarded as top 3 learning organisation in their country.

Overall, I put a lot in writing to explain the context the evidence in each criteria.

Assessment panel feedback:

The applicant has chosen the exceptional talent pathway via OC1 and OC3.

Google drive links leading to evidence housed outside the submitted application were not considered applicable. Additionally, untranslated content that was not paired with an authorised translation was not able to be applied.

All of the recommendations speak well of the applicant but they do not sufficiently demonstrate how the applicant stands out as one of the world’s leading talents in digital technology with sustained and notable recognition on a national or international level. Additionally, the Tech Nation Visa Guidelines note that letters alone, without sufficient third party supporting evidence to corroborate the claims made, are insufficient to demonstrate how an applicant meets any criteria.

For MC1, the Udemy screenshots described as “Leaderboard” were blurred to such an extreme degree that they were rendered illegible and were not able to be applied. The speaking examples show the applicant as a Company representative and we are unconvinced that this was not part of their business development work promoting the Company brand to drive business development rather than them being individually recognised for their talent. Compensation alone is insufficient to meet this criteria. MC1 is not met.

For OC1, the XYZ customer evidence, “International Market expansion” photos, Udemy collaboration with Partner , and Innovative Product evidence do not explain and demonstrate how the applicant authored groundbreaking innovation in the field of digital technology as could be evidenced by a patent, IP or some other clear demonstration of sector advancing originality that is attributable to the applicant. OC1 is not met.

For OC3, the “Expanding to New Markets” screenshots were blurred to such an extreme degree that they were rendered illegible and were not able to be applied. The rest of the evidence is unverified self-authored text, screenshots that do not name the applicant, vague texts or emails, and photos that do not sufficiently explain and detail how the applicant individually made multiple significant technical, commercial, or entrepreneurial contributions to the field as a founder, senior executive, board member or employee of a product-led digital technology company where their individual efforts directly resultedin notable and tangible impact on a product-led digital technology company such as achieving a notable KPI, metric or driving notable commercial traction. OC3 is not met.
Overall the evidence is insufficient to demonstrate how the applicant meets all necessary criteria. We cannot endorse this application

Based on the assessment panel feedback, I have the following questions:

Questions:
Q1. One my speaking evidence is an online session in Japanese. How do I translate a youtube video?

Q2. In one of the events I was invited to speak, I do not have the email from 2 years back and the pictures are of me on stage without the crowd. Would getting a letter and pictures of organisers work? Without this speaking experience evidence, do I not have a chance of getting endorsed?

Q3. Can I add another letter of recommendation from my current Managing Director explaining to support but explain how I am the global leader at my company to supplement the good things that have been said on the other 3 LoR’s? Is there any other suggestion?

Q4. For OC1, would having a letter mentioning how I’ve driven innovation of products in the company by selling our innovative product in a way that spurs additional innovation? I do not develop the products but through my sales and feedback activity I do drive innovation in the company.

Q5. For OC1, innovation of our customers through sales of my product does it not count?

Q6. For OC3, I provided a lot of explanation of explaining how I created impact with supporting evidence of it such as emails, screenshots of presentations, and results. Does explaining too much put the assessors off?

Thank you so much for your support and looking forward to your guidance

2

Hi @edtechsalespro sorry about the outcome!

Q1-4: You cannot add new evidence or any new piece of information in an appeal. You can only re route the assessors attention to parts of the original application.

If you want (and have strong new evidence) to add new information, you should submit a new application altogether.

Q5: what was the external validation to prove the innovation was done by you? If it was only self-documentation then it doesn’t prove.

Q6: did you show quantified impact on certain metrics? What was the external validation for this impact? From what you have mentioned it seems self-documented only.

3

Hi @pahuja,

Thank you for your kind response.

Regarding the Q1-Q4, I’ll try to redirect the best way possible to other areas.
To validate my public speaking, can I provide contacts that they can confirm of my speaking activities?

For Q5, I provided a lot of internal evidence and documents of the achievements for accounts under my name with specific evidence of the achievements and impacts. Do I need someone external validate this? Or do I need to show in every piece of evidence my name?

Q6: I can show how the impact contributed from specific KPIs. There was a lot of self-documented content, together with internal evidence. I can explain using information from other evidence using different criteria.

I’m just a but down as I tried to explain the whole story of my achievements with supporting evidence of internal screenshots but I feel that letters of support or external validation would have more impact.

4

You cannot provide any new piece of information or evidence in appeal.

Q5. What kind of internal evidence is this? If it’s purely self-made claims without any support letter, it’s tough to validate.

Q6: only self authored claims without any validating support letter or external evidences with your name is not strong. Only internal and self-documented evidence can’t be validated.