How to write a CV for the Global Talent Visa application

You will need a CV for the Global Talent application. While the concept of a resume might be familiar to you, it is important that your CV meets the requirements of Tech Nation. It has to include all the necessary information about your professional journey, photos, links and screenshots.

CV (curriculum vitae) is one of the most important documents you’ll have to provide as part of your endorsement application. Your resume is the first document Tech Nation assessors will look at but they will also consider your Reference Letters, Personal Statement, and Supporting Documents. Find out about the requirements for the endorsement application here.

How to write a CV

Tech Nation’s caseworkers go over lots of bland, templated CVs every day. That’s why the worst thing you can do is rely solely on listing your career’s highlights and facts about you.

Here’s what to include in your CV:

• A summary of what you have done as a professional, your career experience
• A list of your roles and the impact you have made while in the position
• Your achievements in a separate paragraph, especially if connected to any international projects. Make sure that they are related to your professional field. Show how your achievements positively impacted the industry
• Your experiences outside your primary occupation connected to the tech sector: mentoring, speaking at conferences, media publications, etc

According to Tech Nation, the CV must be up to 3 A4 Pages long. Although caseworkers quite rarely pay attention to this requirement, it’s better to put all the important information on the first 3 pages of your CV. In that case, if Tech Nation remembers this rule, they will only check those pages but still learn all the necessary details about your career.

If you have doubts about your chances for the Global Talent Visa, take our scoring test and get detailed feedback from our team.

10 tips on how to make your CV stand out

1. Create a new CV

Don't just copy a template from Microsoft Word or print a PDF of your LinkedIn profile. It's considered a bad practice. Remember that, as part of the endorsement application, your CV is not supposed to get you a job but to present you to Tech Nation as a Talent.

2. Don't be shy

You need to be self-praising in your CV, even though it might feel unnatural or uncomfortable. Omit statements like "my team made this contribution". Make sure to emphasise your role in developing and implementing a product or a project and how it affected the company and digital industry as a whole — you're an Exceptional Talent (not your team), and you need to prove it to Tech Nation.

3. Don't forget to include as many numbers

Your projects increased your company's revenue by X%? 7 million people used your product in the first week? 10 media organisations posted about it? By adding such metrics, you're helping Tech Nation assessors realise that you meet the requirements as an Exceptional Talent. If you’re not sure what is the difference between two subcategories of the Global Talent Visa, read this blogpost.

📌 Important:
Keep in mind that it’s crucial to demonstrate the result of your work. So phrases like "I increased the revenues by X" or "I developed a new tool" won’t work separately. The best way is to connect the two and say: “I developed an innovative tool that attracted X users and increased the company's revenues by Y."

‍4. Make your CV eye-catching

Add screenshots with evidence of your achievements, analytics or infographics, photos from your public appearances or speaking at conferences, logos of the companies you worked at, etc. In other words, make it as vivid as you can.

5. Hyperlinks are your best friends

By adding links to your open source contributions, articles and media publications, you can simplify the assessment of your case.

Let's say you are an eminent open source contributor with a wide range of your own projects published on GitHub and hundreds of stars. In this case, you should definitely include the links to these projects with a short description in your CV so that a Tech Nation caseworker can assess your contribution.

Read more about the Global Talent Visa criteria here.

💬 Immigram notes:
"Always support the links you provide with GitHub screenshots (in a separate document) to prove the outside occupation criterion. Tech Nation doesn’t accept, as they state, “documents containing only links to online sources”.

‍6. Avoid mentioning your setbacks

Don't add competitions you failed nor list the companies that won't work well for you. For example, you started your internship at Google but didn’t get an offer after: you can mention you had the internship but don't mention you failed it.

7. Don't just state professional skills –– show how you use them

For example, "I train and mentor new employees and guide them through the workflow" and "I organised the leadership club within my company" instead of just "advanced mentoring and leadership skills".

8. Don't include your language skills

It's not relevant for the endorsement application. One of the Global Talent Visa benefits is that it doesn't require you to provide language certificates. Find out what other benefits Tech Nation Visa offers here.

9. Don't include your education (unless it’s a STEM / MBA degree)

It won’t make a difference unless you’re a technical candidate and have a PhD in STEM or you’re a business candidate with an MBA degree. In that case, definitely mention it in the application. It will make it easier for you to meet the academic contribution requirement.

Read about the difference between technical and business candidates here.

10. Don't write about your hobbies

This information won't make you a Global Talent.

EXAMPLE

Here’s how Immigram works on CVs for Tech Nation.

Before

This is the resume our client sent us when we started working on their case:

The CV consists of:

• client’s contact details,
• the summary of their professional experience,
• the list of companies they worked for,
• their positions and duties at these companies,
• professional and technical skills and languages,
• awards.

As we’ve mentioned before, this is a job-winning resume. However, such a CV won’t help you get the Global Talent Visa. It doesn't provide enough information about the individual achievements of the candidate, contributions to the companies they worked for and their public activity. Listing skills and languages will also be a waste of space for the CV worthy of the Tech Nation’s endorsement.

After

Here’s the CV our client submitted as part of their Global Talent Visa application bundle:

What we’ve added to this resume to make it stand out to Tech Nation’s assessors:

• Client's professional achievements and leadership skills (using verbs like “oversee”, “introduce”, “lead”, “reassemble”, “update”, “create”, “improve”, “implement”, etc.) emphasise their individual contributions and prove that they can be regarded as a leading or promising talent;
• Specific metrics (“increasing the number of users”, “growing the MAU metrics”, “reducing the number of support and compliance calls”, “growing the number of downloads”, “increasing the registration conversion rate”, etc.) provide evidence of our client’’s significant contribution to the companies and the digital field in general;
• Detail and “innovative” wording (“released the ground-breaking smart video editor”, “assembled and finalised unique concepts for upgrading the UI”, “implemented a biometric identification system for the first time in the banking industry”, etc.) highlight our client’s pioneering approach and prove the innovation criterion;
• Additional information on their public activity (publications, mentorship experience and interviews) also show that they are recognised by media and experts in the field;
• Links to companies’ websites, client’s products and publications help simplify the assessment of the case;
• Client’s photo and companies’ logos – although not necessary, but they add to a professional touch.

The final CV is 4 pages long but it provides enough information (along with his other documents) to make our client a UK Talent.

📌 Immigram recommends:
“Don’t forget to update your LinkedIn profile as Tech Nation assessors tend to check profiles of the Global Talent Visa applicants. Add the list of your positions, your achievements and responsibilities, links to your publications, honours and rewards. Align everything you mention with the CV –– your LinkedIn and your resume should match. You can also ask your managers and colleagues to leave short references on your LinkedIn page — it won’t substitute reference letters but will show you’re a well-liked and highly skilled professional.”