I am currently in the United States, working in big tech as a product marketing manager. I have decided to move to the UK for better stability visa wise and am exploring the global talent visa.
About me: Working since 2015. After completing my undergrad in computer science, I became an early key employee at a tech media startup in India, and helped scale it to become India’s largest digital entertainment company. Did my MBA in the US from 2019-2021, and been working as a product marketer in the cloud and GenAI space since 2021 in a big tech company.
Some of my questions are:
Would I be eligible to apply under promising talent rather than leader and would that increase my chances? In total, I have 7 and a half years of experience, but being a product marketer in GenAI field has been for 3 years (and I can position my profile in that expertise)
For evidence, would the following work?
Since I am not telling my current employer I want to move to UK and change companies, I can not get proof of financial statements. But, I am responsible for awareness and adoption (direct revenue impact) of some of the company’s key AI services and can get a letter of evidence from my manager as well as media coverage of the products I worked on. Only proof that I worked on them are some email and slack conversations (I will have to redact results and numbers in those conversations)
I had always been involved in mentoring but have recently become more proactive in community and have the following media coverage - 2 articles covering my work, 2-3 articles authored by me which are opinion piece on product marketing and AI, judged a couple of hackathons, doing a product marketing panel in March, 2 podcasts on product marketing and AI. Would these count as evidence?
I would have been able to show financial impact of the work I did in the Indian startup and get letter of evidence from founders as well. But that was pre 2019 so wouldn’t count. Can it still be used as evidence in some optional category?
I can’t work on side projects under the current US visa and that’s another reason to explore the UK option. This is why I did pro-bono consulting (no formal contract) for a couple of small startups and helped increase their revenue and customers (one went from $0 to $30k monthly ARR and other had 30k users). Both of these are bootstrapped 2 people startups so the result was considerable for them. I can get letter of evidence from the founders. Would that count as evidence?
Would greatly appreciate any feedback on whether the above profile and evidence is eligibile for the visa? And what are the gaps that I should focus on. Thank you.
I’m also on the marketing side and currently preparing my application, so I can share my perspective based on what I know and my understanding of the Tech Nation Guide.
Like you, I have 7 years of work experience and am aiming to apply under the promise talent category. I believe it entirely depends on how you persuade the evaluators, so I think your approach could work.
I’ve seen discussions suggesting that very recent experiences might not be recognized. However, since you can submit up to 10 pieces of evidence, I feel it’s worth including if you have the space.
Similarly, if there’s room, it might be worth trying to include those experiences as well.
I share a similar background and am also planning to include a recommendation letter from a CEO of a secondary job. The key is to emphasize the contribution and impact in your evidence and recommendation letters. It’s all about storytelling.
These are just my thoughts. Let’s keep pushing forward!
Hope your preparation is going well! Are you submitting it soon?
I talked to people and they said recent media coverage would count. I am counting that as major evidence in mandatory criteria since this month next month, I would have had hackathons, press coverage, podcasts, and panel done.
Do you know anyone here who can shed more light if that won’t be the case?
I have finalized my referees and the talking points of my statement. A little confused on how to categorize evidence and if we can or should use same evidence for multiple categories.
Let me know if you have any questions that I can help answer as well.
I am afraid you haven’t read the tech nation guide. Please kindly take your time reading and re-reading it even before speaking to people because they may be speaking based on what was applicable when they applied.
Please avoid using recent media coverage as your most important evidence. Look at it like this, you can add it but you should have a HISTORY of being exceptional.
Please do not repeat evidence.
I think you should go back and read the guide over and over again. The guide will even help you arrange all the evidence you have. Then you can outline them here for others to help.
Thanks for the feedback, @C91. I am in big tech in AI so can’t show direct revenue numbers but I will have screenshots of my work, letter of reference from someone in senior management about its impact and press coverage on those products highlight both the innovation and the worldwide list of customers using them.
I was planning on supplementing that with the recent public work (most of it published in March and April). Can I still use that secondary evidence or none of that will count at all? The recent public profile list includes press coverage on my work, podcasts, panel, judging hackathons, mentoring etc
Also, two questions on not repeating evidence:
Does that mean not using a letter of reference as evidence in any category?
If I have to use letter of support as evidence for a particular category, can that come from a senior manager in a big tech company without a big public profile? Or the letter of support confirming that I did the work and my contribution to support other evidences in a category also needs to be by someone who has a public profile?
@Sissi - I was told that if you have more than 5 years of experience, you need to apply for exceptional leader. You mentioned you are going for promise with 7 years of experience. How will you talk about the extra 2 years?
The rule is you can’t use an evidence twice. You can’t use the same recommendation letter you’ve used as evidence in MC or OC. Instead you’d have to get another letter. Whoever is writing you a reference letter for MC or OC should be someone senior and should be able to explain your impact. They may not necessarily be at the same level as the people writing recommendation letter but they should know their work and your work.
For public profile, perhaps ask others. Put up your list of evidence and ask people for their opinion.
Thank you! This helps. I went through the complete guide as well like you suggested and it cleared out points. I have definitely had the impact it requires, it is now about putting the evidence in the right order to prove it.