Hello Everyone,
I got a rejection for my application a week after submission, and upon looking at the proforma, it seems like a lot of evidence was overlooked or ignored. After an appeal, I got the same rejection as before, as though it was reviewed by the same person or not even properly looked at. I’ll attach the proforma here.
here’s a link to the documents I submitted
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For context, every piece of evidence submitted was backed up with media claims as well as stats for the media claims
I also was called a standard software engineer when there was evidence that I was a CTO
Mentorship platforms were stated to be irrelevant when there was evidence that they were nationally recognized, and also support letters from the head of the program and testimonials from mentees were overlooked for advancing the sector when they were added and stated how it impacted their lives.
Here is the reply I got from my appeal:
The Home Office forwarded your request to Tech Nation and it has confirmed it is satisfied with the recommendation not to endorse. We have included further details regarding the decision below:
The candidate has applied for the Global Talent Visa (GTV) through the Exceptional Promise pathway. While all evidence has been reviewed, not all may be commented on. After careful consideration, the assessor concludes that the candidate does not meet the criteria necessary for endorsement.
The candidate started their first meaningful technology job in 2020, which suggests they are still in the early stages of their career as required by the Exceptional Promise pathway.
The mandatory references speak well of the candidate, but do not explain how they are one of the world’s leading talents in technology or how they have been recognised for their work beyond their employment. They are also missing any digital signatures.
The Mandatory Criteria require the candidate to demonstrate they are a recognised leader with extraordinary ability within a technology field and demonstrate national or international recognition. We note their work history as a Software Engineer. Regarding Company1, we note the articles showcasing the company, but they do not showcase the candidate. We do not consider Publication1 to be a major technology publication, with a low barrier to publication. Award1 is not a prominent awards platform and there is little publicly available information on the judging criteria, jury expertise, or evaluation depth. This makes it hard to assess the credibility of selections. MC is not met.
Regarding Optional Criteria 2, the candidate should provide proof of recognition for work beyond the applicant’s occupation that contributes to the advancement of the field. Their GitHub profile does not have many stars or followers. We are not convinced that the Publication1 articles can be considered field advancing. Their contributions to Mentorship1 and Mentorship2 are not mentoring programme recognised for digital technology field advancement. The support letters do not speak to field-advancing impact, but career development. This is not sufficient to meet OC2. Product2 is more interesting, but we do not see evidence of some impact within the field. The dashboard screenshots are inconstant. One shows 25k active users, while another shows 78 users in the last month. OC2 is not met.
Regarding Optional Criteria 3, the candidate should demonstrate significant technical, commercial or entrepreneurial contributions to the field as a founder or employee of a product-led digital technology company. Regarding their work at Company3, we are not able to directly tie the candidates’ contributions to the successes claimed as many other people were involved. We face a similar challenge with the Company4 evidence. However, their work at Company1 as the CTO we are more comfortable with this link. OC3 is met."
From the reply and evidences one can tell that the letters submitted were handsigned, stamped and scanned before submitted, but they mentioned it lacked a trail.
Industry award was dismissed even with articles noting it and a visible eligibility criteria on their website added.
Github which I didn’t even add as part of my evidence was also mentioned as not having enough followers or stars when it was very clearly tied to several organisations with private repos. contribution graph shows a healthy amount of contribution for 5 years which was ignored.
Popular Mentorship programs which were very clearly structured and Physical were called off as “not recognized for digital tech field advancement”
Regardless of this outcome, I plan to reapply soon. I would like to get advice from the experts here on what to do differently this time around, judging from the feedback I got here. I have some more evidence I can attach but just need advice. Thanks in advance.