Success Story – Marina Levitan-Gorfinkel, Graphic Designer, Ilient / by Hadas Shimoni
marina levitan-gorfinkel, 29, is a graduate of the betzalel institute with a major in graphic design and has four years’ experience.
marina spent a few years working at a design studio in jerusalem during which she acquired comprehensive expertise in graphic design and at a certain stage she decided to head in a new direction professionally and work in the field of website design. marina found her job as a graphic designer at ilient via the jobnet site.
founded in 2002, ilient is a software house that manufactures a service, support and stock management help-desk system designed for it departments at various organizations. the company’s flagship product, sysaid, is a system that enables easy and efficient technical support that provides knowledge as well as command and control over all of the it departments’ operations. the company currently has 30 employees working at the company offices in or yehuda, and is constantly growing. ilient clients are found around the world, including tuvalu, tobago and trinidad, the cayman islands and indonesia.
marina levitan-gorfinkel at the ilient company offices
why did you decide to switch to a new area of expertise?
“after four years at the same design studio i felt a need to make a change and advance professionally. i realized to do so i would have to find a new job. also, i decided to change my focus from mostly print-oriented design to work on website design in a high-tech environment in which i’d be able to acquire experience and express myself in the internet world.”
where did you send out your resume and which considerations did you take into account?
“i sent resumes for positions i found on job-search websites. a good friend of mine warmly recommended jobnet to me as an efficient site for looking for positions in the field of graphics. the selection of job listings and the easy navigation on the site allowed me to conduct a focused search. i’m a graphic designer by profession and by training, so it was important to me to find a position in the field and the considerations i took into account were related to what the position entailed.”
which criteria guided you in looking for work?
“i was looking for work that would open up before me new avenues and opportunities for advancement. the most important thing to me, of course, is the chemistry between the staff members, so first and foremost i was looking for a good, pleasant work environment. i also weighed location and ease of commute in making my choice.”
did you look into other options?
“besides ilient i looked into three other options. two of the three were willing to hire me, but i opted to turn them down because they lacked the warm treatment and atmosphere i was looking for. a workplace is a place where you spend most of the hours of the day, so it was important to me not to compromise on this matter.”
how did your first days at the company go?
“i was happy to find my first few days at ilient matched my expectations. the staff took me in warmly with a lot of smiles, and from the very first day my acclimation went quickly and smoothly. from a professional perspective, as the only and first designer to take the job i faced lots of new challenges and tasks i hadn’t tackled previously, so a broad range of activities opened before me.”
what tasks does your job of graphic designer entail?
“i’m in charge of the field of design at the company. in ilient’s case that means maintaining the corporate identity, building a product line that extends over all of the interfaces, including sysaid and sysaid css software products: website design, a monthly newsletter and all of the other functions affected by design. i also worked on a project to shape an internal label related to the company offices, making it reflect the values of the flagship product – the sysaid helpdesk program.
what kind of a company is ilient in terms of its dealings with you, the atmosphere and the character of the company?
“the atmosphere at ilient is young, dynamic and friendly. the people i work with at the company make open, professional dialogue possible. there’s a lot of openness to ideas and that enables creative and productive work to get done.”
what is your impression of the company so far?
“i’ve gotten an excellent impression. when i work on an urgent project, it’s definitely possible to achieve results calmly and without anxiety. i’m the only one involved in design here, there’s no competition and i receive support and encouragement from the employees and the management, making the work experience more pleasant and more efficient.”
do you feel you’ve advanced professionally and see yourself remaining at ilient for several years?
“absolutely. one of the areas i’m currently involved in is gui, which means designing a software user interface – an area i’d never worked in prior to my arrival at ilient. although i’d designed many websites over the years, only at ilient did i see intelligent use of tools such as google analytics, which enable checking the design using business parameters on efficiency. i used to check websites based on design and aesthetics, without being able to know the true consequences of the design.”
do you have any advice for jobseekers?
“i would definitely recommend making use of job-search websites, particularly jobnet. i started working at ilient three weeks from the moment i saw the job listing on jobnet.”
yisrael lipshitz, ceo and founder of ilient, to what extent has your collaboration with the jobnet site contributed to your company?
“jobnet yields quality resumes from which we succeed in manning job openings. these recruits are excellent people who remain at ilient over the long term, and therefore we’re definitely going to continue our cooperation with the jobnet site.”
for more success stories, click on employment articles
looking for work?
looking for employees?
join everybody's success at jobnet!
for the hebrew article 