Unsuccessful endorsement applications – steps after being rejected

Getting endorsement from an endorsing body (in our case, from Tech Nation) is the first stage of the application process. Tech Nation assesses your skills, achievements and abilities, and informs the Home Office whether you can be endorsed or not. This stage can take up to 8 weeks to be finalized.

You may get an endorsement decision within 3 weeks if your application is considered to be ‘Fast Track'. To get on the track, you have to be accepted onto a recognized accelerator programme (for example, Antler, Barclays Accelerator, Creative Destruction Lab, or Startupbootcamp). The committee can also come up with the decision as soon as in 2 days, and Immigram has had such cases as well.

No matter the timeline of the decision, though, there is a chance of not getting the endorsement. And you have three options on how to act from there:

• You can re-apply through the same track again but this allows you to add new evidence. At this point, you will have to pay the application fee again.
  

• You can apply for entry through another route. For example, if you applied as an Exceptional Talent, you may re-apply as an Exceptional Promise. You can read about this option in Immigram’s previous blog here.
  

• You can apply for a review if you do not think your endorsement application was judged correctly. Tech Nation will reconsider your application. There is no fee. The decision that follows this review is final.
  

Tech Nation can review its decision and endorse you in the end. However, there is still a chance the committee will refuse anew. You still have the option of re-applying through the same track or applying through another track.

An applicant is not limited in the number of applications. Even so, it costs £623 to apply for a Global Talent Visa (£456 of which is the application fee just for the endorsement). If you failed once, you may sign up for a free consultation with Immigram and save money on numerous re-applications.

If you have decided to appeal against the endorsement refusal, you have to fill a specific Endorsement Review form. The email from the Home Office notifying you of the decision will also have the reason or reasons you were unsuccessful. In the review form you will have to provide this reason and state briefly how you think you meet the requirement referred and what evidence you had provided originally can support this. If you think there was more than one error made by the endorsing body, you have to provide each error and an explanation to that error separately. Remember to keep your explanations brief and concise for the space provided.

You have 28 days to send your appeal to Tech Nation, and they have 28 days to review your case.

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As we have mentioned before, the email notifying you of the refusal will also have the reason or reasons you were unsuccessful. It will consist of a brief comment of the overall review conclusion to your application and a table where all the criteria is enumerated, thus Tech Nation is transparent in which requirements you have succeeded in and which you have failed.

Immigram’s specialists name several reasons Tech Nation decides to refuse the endorsement for their clients. Some of them being — the lack of evidence for the innovation track or the lack of proof for the applicant’s side-occupation.

• A professional with great experience in the field was refused the endorsement due to a large number of pages in his supporting evidence documents. The guideline states the acceptable number to be 10 pages, and this client had around 30 pages. All these pages consisted of his performance reviews, grants, bonuses, salaries and accomplishments due to his experience. In the endorsement appeal, Immigram’s specialists noted this fact and the client got his endorsement without any problems.
  

• Another client, the head of product design in a big IT-company, in the endorsement application provided evidence for his side occupation. On numerous occasions he participated in IT-conferences, gave lectures in schools, courses and universities. He got the refusal email due to the lack of evidence of his side-occupation. Immigram’s specialists wrote the appeal around the fact that the application contained all the necessary proof.
  

• A prominent specialist at a large IT start-up was refused the endorsement because, according to Tech Nation, he lacked the innovation track record. The appeal was composed around the specialist’s innovations and the fact they were recognised by the industry experts and media (like, Forbes).

• Another applicant with plenty of innovations and a patent was also refused the endorsement due to the lack of proof for the innovation track record. The application inspector noted that referees were not eligible for Global Talent visa. Immigram’s specialists posed a question of the nature of this eligibility as referees, per the visa guideline, are supposed to be industry leaders and not potential Global Talent visa applicants. Ultimately, the applicant was given the endorsement after the appeal.
  

Tech Nation can review the appeal and give the endorsement. They can refuse once more but provide a broader explanation to the applicant’s ineligibility criteria. In rare cases, the body can send the refusal and permission to review the decision again. That is possible if Tech Nation misses the deadline to the review, or the application review process could have been provided with certain mistakes on their part.

The process of appealing the case is already established at Immigram:

1. The day the client gets their refusal, there is a meeting called with talent managers, case leads and quality assurance (QA) specialists.
2. They brainstorm the overall strategy to appeal the case and possible counterarguments to the decision.
3. After that, a QA specialist composes the review, gets the feedback from the client and fills in the Endorsement review form. The form is sent to the client, as they are supposed to send it in their own name.
   

Immigram has about 80% of success rate in the endorsement appeals. The team members know how to compose the review request and what can be taken as non-compliance with criteria by Tech Nation.

People might perceive the refusal inappropriately. The applicant must be impartial and nonchalantly look at the application to compose the appeal. It is also mandatory to be an expert on the visa guidelines and understand if the applicant can either counter every argument in the refusal letter or see to it that the Tech Nation’s inspector attends to a bundle of evidence they missed in the first assessment. The good news is that Immigram is ready to take over and provide you with assistance in the appeal process.