As you probably saw on the [O]fficial announcements, we made a change to the requirements for an L3 application.  The change is one that we believe will help candidates put together their applications without having to worry too much about schedule-juggling.

If you receive a recommendation from an L4+ Head Judge indicating success as a Team Lead at a Grand Prix, that recommendation is now valid for three years instead of one year, as it was before.

So, why did we make this change?  Mainly to ensure that we don’t use GP day 2 TL slots on candidates who we already know are capable of success.  As you may know, we typically choose two advanced L2s to TL on day 2.  At the end of the event, those L2s will receive either the TL recommendation or extensive feedback on how to improve for next time.  Those TL slots tend to be in high demand: it is not uncommon for us to receive six or more requests for those two slots.

People who received the TL recommendation early on (around the time the new L3 advancement policies were put into place) are now seeing a problem.  Their recommendations are, in some cases, expiring while they are trying to put together the rest of their L3 applications.  As a result, they are requesting new TL opportunities at GPs.  Honestly, we don’t have any real doubts about those judges’ ability to be effective TLs, so we’d rather reserve the TL slots for candidates we haven’t observed yet.

We believe that this change will make it easier for qualified candidates to apply for L3 with fewer bureaucratic requirements.  Whenever we can streamline the process without sacrificing the quality of the candidates we get, we will endeavor to do so.

As always, if you have comments or questions, post them here or contact me privately!

-J-Mo