Urgent Help Needed – Appeal for Endorsement Rejection

Hi Everyone,
I have applied for Global Talent Visa and sadly got reject. I need your suggestions and advice.

Let me first share my evidence here

Letters of recommendation:

  1. Principal Product Manager from Meta (current company)
  2. Senior Engineering Manager from a previous company
  3. Professor who supervised my company research (highly regarded with an impressive Google Scholar profile)

Mandatory evidence:

  1. I contributed to stopping a cyber theft incident, which was publicly covered, including in TechCrunch. One recommendation letter details this as well. The outcome safeguarded the personal data of over 50 million users.
  2. I contributed to a VR project at Meta that fixes user experience and help to increase users adoption to that project by 50%, with detailed evidence supported by a recommendation letter.
  3. I have spoken at prestigious international conferences such as PyCon and the Google Developer Club.
  4. Offer letters from previous companies.

OC4 evidence:

  1. I received a two merit-based scholarship from an EU body.
  2. A certification from EU’s body like Tech Nation, focusing on research with startups. And a Master degree with honors
  3. I conducted two researches one pulcily published while other was for a company, which is not publicly available due to confidentiality. However, the case study and results are public. I am attaching an endorsement letter from a colleague with a high Google Scholar profile, in addition to my recommendation letters.

OC3 evidence:

  1. I completed a project at Meta that resulted in user acquisition and retention. I have detailed evidence and impact published by a 3rd party audit report and a supporting letter from a senior colleague.
  2. I supported the release of a major VR application at Meta, with additional backing from a Technical Program Manager’s letter and publicly available release notes.
  3. My Meta offer letter and performance reviews demonstrate my progress and contributions during my time at the company.

Feedback

Regarding their overall career history and Mandatory Criteria (MC), their data science experience appears strong. However, a description of their role and seniority does not suggest niche skills or exceptional recognition for their level of experience. Their examples of work, in particular the meta VR onboarding, demonstrate capable work. Developing a friction measurement framework is a novel approach. However, the evidence does not satisfactorily convey whether their work gained significant acclaim either nationally or internationally. Their work involved many colleagues. So while it is capable and of high value, it does not go beyond demonstrating a capable employee performing their role well. And while their compensation is higher than average, it is not exceptionally so. Their PyCon speaking example is not to ET standards. The video only had 60 views and we do not consider the topic to be an example of exceptional technology leadership. And supporting students is not a meaningful accolade for MC. We do note their EIT scholarship.

On balance, the calibre of the examples does not meet the high standards of national/international acclaim we require. We cannot award MC. Regarding Optional Criteria 3, their work on the Meta VR onboarding is clearly well received internally.
This is a good example. But their example related to Facebook Workplace lacks objective impact metrics to validate the calibre of the outcome. We respect their internal performance review, but this is not objective evidence of impact - only an opinion regarding their value to the team as a whole. OC3 is not met.

Regarding Optional Criteria 4, regretfully, the links to the mentioned papers were not working. And the support letter from Antti Ajanki does not validate the research but attempts to validate the candidate - which is not what this criteria seeks. We must have conviction there is a track record of creating original academic output that significantly impacts a product-led technology field. We also note many collaborators were involved from Futurice Oy, making it very challenging to isolate the candidate’s unique research. An EIT labelled certification is not evidence of impact to a product-led technology field through original academic research. OC4 is not met. We must also stress that even if their research papers were adequate, there are insufficient examples to demonstrate a significant track record.

The feedback provided is contradicting to itself. At places they are giving rejecting statements while in the same place they are accepting my work. Moreover, they have mixed my evidences in different places wrongly.

  • For example they said I don’t have niche skills and then accepting my work in VR field.
  • Another example they agreed that my compensation are higher but say that its not exponential high, while I mentioned and proof I am among top 5% earner of the UK
  • Then the mentioned about my public speaking, they disregard the big name of PyCon and just focused on the views on the video which was optional to that speaking event. I have attached the picture clearly showing high audience and mentioned the reorganization of the even it self
  • Then they overlook the international impact of my OC 3 work that I have provided through blogs and App store reviews.
  • They awarded me scholarship in MC while I apllied in OC4
  • They again mentioned a part of my MC evidence wrongly in my OC3 about perforamnce reivew at a company.

FYI: I have given external evidence with almost my evidence like blogs, reports etc

I beleive my application was not provided enough time to review and accessed weirdly. But with the provided feedback I am not sure if it is better to appeal or apply again? Alsi I am not sure if the new application is linked with old one @Francisca_Chiedu , @pahuja , @alexnk, @Maya @hsafra @Durga

I would like to hear your opinion on this please, especially some great helper from this forum.

Edit: I have drafted and attached my appeal below:

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Hi @Omer

its always advisable to appeal to redirect assessors to points they might miss during assessment, Take your time reviewing their feedback and collecting comments from colleagues in this forum and around to best respond to their rejection.

Personally, i find your mandatory weak as you depended solely on letters and job offer. which both were stated as weak evidences in the guide. Also, i believe the evidences you provided doesn’t suggest being ‘‘nationally or internationally recognised’’.

In the Impact, were you trying to highlight your in technical, commercial or entrepreneurial contributions. This is so crucial as in many other feedback the panel highlighted difference between contribution and day to day work duties which is not at most of times considered by them.

maybe, my comments do not support your appeal directly, however, if you can prove the opposite and to TN Panel too, that would be great.

Best of luck!

Thank you @Maya so much for the quick reply. As I mentioned in my main post I have attached external publication about the impact of all my evidences. Letters are just one supporting doc while blogs and reports have attached to show recoginizations

I am not sure how else you can show national or international recoginizations

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Thats a good point, your will definitely need to direct their attention to those blogs, especially if were shared by Digital or prestigious communities or media. As i suggested, list down all these comments as will help you in drafting your appeal.

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I am sorry to heat that you were not endorsed.

I personally feel that your evidence are somewhat weak in some areas for exceptional talent route which requires stong evidence to show that you are an EXCEPTIONAL TALENT/LEADER in this field. (But if you are on the promising talent route, it may be possible). Anyway here are my comments below.

MC: It is advisable appeal or provide the evidence that you led the project, not just being a part of the project. Same to the speaking conference, you should be the main or senior speaker of the event, which is proven by a letter or public news.

OC4: It is good idea to point out that the first assessor awarded the scholarship in MC, which may help to bring attention to award your OC4

OC3: This should be mostly about reports and numbers which was the result of your leadership of the project.

Most of all, in the appeal form, I suggest you to refer each point to specific file name and location. ie: MC1 letter A.pdf, page 2, paragraph 1, to show that the first assessor had overlooked, and he/she was wrong. (Please note that you can NOT add any more evidence to this application). So be precise on the referecing to help second assessor to work easier to help your endorsement.

I hope this helps @Omer

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