Significant achievement - would I qualify?

[BWA]

My HSMP application depends on whether I can convince that I have made a "significant achievement" in my specialist field. I'm a bit concerned, as the consensus on here seems to be that the "achievement" part of the HSMP application is the most difficult to gain points from.

Having read the caseworker notes, I realise that my evidence is far from mainstream, and wonder whether you feel I qualify or not.

Here are the areas of possible contention:


Peer references
"The references should not be personal references and should contain comments about the achievement. Stating information such as what the applicant has done and how that achievement has contributed to their particular field of work."

My evidence:
-an academic journal article endnote that references a newspaper article I wrote (would that alone be enough, or would they fish through the article to where the endnote number is, and see what the article paragraph actually says?)
-the online syllabus of a university course that used my Masters thesis as required reading (does the fact that I was only 23 when this was required reading add any leverage?)
-there were also two chaps who emailed me requesting permission to quote from the above-mentioned thesis, although stupidly I deleted their emails, and now cannot track them down to obtain copies of their unpublished papers (and Google hasn't helped me to resolve this problem)


Thesis
"This can be used to confirm that the applicant has ‘ownership’ of the subject matter of the achievement. However, a copy of the thesis alone is not sufficient to award the points for this section, as the thesis does not demonstrate how the work has contributed to the field of work."

My evidence:
-two 50-page papers that I wrote during my MA, one being my Masters thesis. (I assume that if I attach a brief note to each of them, explaining how they furthered the field, it might help... but not as much as someone else explaining this!)


Published work
"This evidence could be in the form of a book, research article or music/songs etc.
For this kind of evidence to be considered it should clearly show the work has been done by the applicant. But then other supporting evidence would also have to be supplied to show the impact that work has had. Be aware - just because someone has had a book published it doesn't mean that any copies have been sold or people in this field of work know anything about the work (which doesn’t constitute a significant achievement, as the work hasn't been acknowledged)."

My evidence:
-several articles that have been published in newspapers from various countries (stupidly I haven't submitted any papers to academic journals, although I very well could have.... doh!)


Scholarships
"Ordinary scholarships do not demonstrate significant achievement as they are awarded every year and often to large numbers of people. The kind of scholarship that is a significant achievement is where there they have been awarded for rare reasons and the evidence should demonstrate that being awarded the scholarship was significant."

My evidence:
-two scholarships during my MA... neither of them are particularly "rare", although one is solely post-graduate, and only awarded to five or so people per year. (If I could explain that I was awarded them when I was only 21 years old, thanks to newspapers articles I had published, perhaps this would help?)

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Many thanks in advance!

[amhilde]

Honestly? I dont think its enough.

Someone on here a number of months back tried for significant achievement and had articles published all over the god-given world and sent in originals and STILL didnt get it- he had quite a body of work. I wrote a 180 page thesis for my masters on the potential economic impacts of changes to gambling law in the UK- something no one else is currently doing, and I didnt even attempt to try for significant achievement because I did not think I could convince the assessors that it was significant in any shape or form- even though I took it to an international conference and have had my work referenced by several different groups, and continue to work on the subject.

BTW- where did you gain your MA? And is it in the same field as your bachelors?

[BWA]

Well, I realise it's really more about getting recognition from others that you've made an achievement, rather than the achievement itself.

Isn't having one's work as required reading in a university course syllabus worth something? And if I've been referenced in a few papers, shouldn't that corraborate the syllabus argument?

Anyway, it sounds like I really might need an agency to help me out with this. I'd far prefer to do the research myself (via sites like this one), but I don't see a heck of a lot in this forum about experiences getting achievement points. Many thanks for your feedback, though! If you can add anything more, do let me know.

P.S. My MA is from the University of Toronto, and yes, it's in the same field as my BA.

[amhilde]

Thats good- they rejected me because i had an undergraduate in one subject and a graduate degree in another even though I could prove there were similar courses in the UK that did not require the same subject as an undergrad.

I guess I would like to add that I can understand your arguement and that you make a convincing one- much in the way that I did against their refusal ( which also had an issue of their not following their own guidelines). After all, you completed a thesis and that requires making a point and defending it. However, please understand as well that the people in Sheffield will likely not see your arguement in the same way, and are (if I may make an assumption based on my experience in both the HSMP process and the civil servants involved in the recent gambling bill) not quite as well educated as you would perhaps like them to be given the level of decisions they are making in regards to both the lives of applicants and the labor market for the UK. (frankly, I question if they would understand the concept of a syllabus). I would strongly advise you to read the situation of JhonnyECU as he applied for significant achievement with SEVEN forms of support and did not receive it even though he applied three times.

My professor uses my thesis as required reading to help teach part of his class IN THE UK on gambling- I still dont think its significant achievement. I dont intend to be mean here, but to be realistic- there is nothing worse than having your dreams crushed because of some idiot in another country, especially a country where you have lived, worked, studied, and have a significant contribution to make to industries that are lacking skilled workers- isnt that what HSMP is about? Its a highly imperfect system and has not actually brought in the people the UK needs.

What field do you work in? What sort of jobs would you do in the UK?

[BWA]

To be honest, I don't think I've made a significant achievement. However, my curiousity is whether I can "play the system" and convince the tick-box employees that I have.

I don't mean to be deceitful or dishonest, but if they're going to have such a silly system for judging whether to let people in or not, then what other options to people like you or I have?

I guess I'm just a little annoyed with how close, yet how far I am from settling here.

For example, I'm of English descent, but it's via a great-grandparent, not a grandparent. The ancestry visa draws an arbitrary (yet uncrossable) line between the two, so no luck there.

I've been with my partner, who has a BA and is about to finish a second BA, for two years now. Unfortunately we've only been living together for 8 months, so that counts for nothing. The 10 points that this would have given me would have put me at exactly the 65 points needed. A heck of a lot easier than claiming any "achievement"!

In 2003/04 I was making enough money in a non-Western country to claim the lower of the three salary points. Not anymore, now that I'm in the UK. I should have applied back then, in hindsight.

Basically I'm working in a permanent government job with great prospects, and am currently living with the woman I intend to marry and settle with. She's also here on her own accord, about to do an MA. My "working holidaymaker" life here is so settled that even my hobbies are sorted - I'm on the committee of a non-league (amateur) football club, to which I devote 10 hours per week volunteering my time. But again, it counts for nothing.

I read about Entry Clearance stipulations where you have to show you can support yourself, convince them you're close to finding a job, etc etc. Again, that's all been sorted. It's only the right to work longer that I need.

The government job where I work are thrilled to have me, but governments here don't offer work permits - they only employ people already with the right to work. They've offered me a permanent job, but can only legally employee for as long as my current visa is valid, and thus have me on a temporary contract for now. If I strolled in tomorrow with the right to work longer, they'd have the forms ready to go....

So close, yet so far....

[amhilde]

I know how you feel- I was working in the UK in '99 and was settled as well with hobbies and a life- I moved over to be with a British bf who I thankfully left in the end . What angered me about my application is that you are only required to send in the highest degree obtained, and all this official proof. So i sent only my highest degree obtained- exactly as the caseworker guidelines recommended. I foolishly included a CV at the back to support my UK work- and thats where they saw the undergraduate degree was different- though I had a minor in what I did my masters degree in. So I was tossed for something stupid relating to NARIC having a narrow view of degrees on offer in the UK, and by a non-official piece of paper. Ive passed the age of 28, and dont make enough in income due to where in the US im located (now $45K a year is starting in a major metropolitan area due to cost of living, but not here). I agree that the stipulations they require for points are foolish- frankly I still dont see the correlation between high wages and "highly skilled"- certain industries offer higher wages than others, and certain areas are going to have inflated wage rates due to higher cost of living. Meanwhile I see plenty of perfectly good jobs Im capable of doing in market research and market analysis go past while there are few people to do them.

Oh, and the skilled partner thing drives me crazy too- since Im not married Im penalized? I dont get points for having lived and worked in the UK before (therefore I would be more likely to assimilate and get a job)? This summer Im going to put in some applications at a few places- if I ended up getting a Work Permit ill die laughing ( Ill be in Sweden this summer so it should be easy).

Anyway, I suppose I just dont want you to waste the application money- I think they tend to look really close at anyone making significant achievement point claims. How far under the wage limit are you?

[BWA]

Significantly under the wage limit! Only on £17.5k a year. Very much "entry-level" pay.

I too am fearful of wasting significant money on the application. Add to the £315 potential agency fees, costs of getting documents arranged and sent to me from several countries, etc. I don't have much money in the bank, so it would really help if I still had that money if I return to Canada.

But... not applying at all is tantamount to simply throwing away the great life I've got going for me here. Leaving the missus behind, albeit only temporarily, is the especially difficult part.

Argh!!!

I'll post some more details about my evidence later (which will include a tad more than I included in my original list above). Perhaps we could pick it apart with a fine-toothed comb and see where the holes are.

Oh, and supposedly a new, five-tier immigration scheme is to be rolled out in "Spring 2006" - the top two levels would be "highly skilled" and "skilled". I'm sure I'd be able to qualify for skilled, so we'll see what happens with that....

[amhilde]

You can email me if you want to with your evidence.

well see how that new immigration policy goes- should be interesting to see who they let in and who they dont from now on. Then again, we should see if they can get it done by 2006- the UK govt machinations arent exactly the fastest!

[BWA]

Cheers, thanks for the offer.

I was looking through the archives of "significant achievement" posts, and this one woman seemed to be saying (if I understood her correctly) that she was submitting three academic articles as proof of "significant achievement". She was attempting to provide three bits of evidence of recognition for each of the articles, but could only provide two pieces of recognition for one of the articles, and that seemed to be the reason her "significant achievement" failed.

These tick-box people seem happy to write an 'X' at the most minor of things. Would she perhaps have been wiser to simply have submitted one article and three pieces of evidence of recognition, rather than three articles and eight (instead of nine) pieces of evidence of recognition?

A tid silly, but it seems like getting significant achievement points is as more about strictly meeting some (relatively arbitrary) "minimum requirement list" as much as is it is about actually achieving something and getting recognition for it. Obviously writing three recognised articles is more impressive than just one, but it seemed that the aforementioned woman might have been better off just submitting one article and three pieces of evidence.

Or am I now just becoming paranoid?

[amhilde]

Youll get a lot more paranoid before all this is over, trust me

I still dont know why they didnt give it to JhonnyECU- the guy had a national film award and all sorts of stuff to back that up, in addition to proper letters and this and that and it wasnt enough. Hes even worked in the UK already and in other countries, so I just dont know what the hell they are looking for over there. As for that woman, I thought you had to supply at least three forms of proof, though Im not sure where i read that at all.

Its like trying to argue with a brick wall, I swear.