An interview with Kate Bernstein, YEDA Technical Communications graduate and presently Marcom Manager in a hi-tech company in the Tel Aviv area.
Interviewer: Kate, I remember you as one of our best students - you finished the course in record time and your writing was excellent - and all without a technical background.
You found a job fairly quickly after you graduated - I remember coaching you before the interviews and making sure that your resume was strong and convincing. I think it’s an impressive accomplishment that for your first job you were hired as a Marcom Manager, even though you had no experience.
Kate, how long have you been working as a Marcom Manager now?
Kate: I’ve been working at the same job now for almost a year.
Interviewer: Can you tell us what your job consists of, and what your day to day tasks are like?
Kate: Officially, I’m a “Manager”, but being a Marcom Manager doesn’tt necessarily mean that I only manage - in fact, I pretty much do everything that has to get done when it comes to marketing - here are just some of the tasks that I’ve done, or am continually doing:
Write copy for our website,
Handle all email marketing that goes to our customers,
Write and execute a monthly newsletter,
Prepare all material for new product releases (new web copy, PDFs, release notes)
Organize training programs,
Create and narrate product tutorials,
Organize and write emails for the CRM, interview customers for success stories,
Help set the strategic direction of the product's branding,
Organized the company’s first conference :
Wrote all text for a mini-site,
Launched a massive advertising campaign,
Wrote all presentations for the conference, brochures that were distributed
Put out daily Twitter messages
That's all I can think of right now... but there's more...
Interviewer: Wow, that’s a pretty full schedule already. What part of the job do you like the best?
Kate: I like talking to product managers or developers who see the purely technical aspect of a feature and functionality and teasing out the "so what?" factor -
"Who needs it?"
"Why?"
"How would this make some one's life better or easier?":
I can take the technical information and turn it in to something interesting.
Interviewer: That’s very interesting - that is just the kind of contribution that technical communicators make - to bring out the significance of the product’s features. It’s also one of the central subjects that YEDA teaches.
Speaking of YEDA, what was YEDA’s role in helping you get that job?
Kate: YEDA gave me the practical advice I needed about the current market, what's important to emphasize in interviews, what kind of salary I should demand, and more. All this information gave me the knowledge and confidence I needed to get a job with a good salary.
Interviewer: You were fairly new in the country when you took the course. Did YEDA help with learning how to get along in the Israeli business world?
Kate: Yes, all of those things I mentioned are especially important for someone who doesn't have experience in Israel and needs help with the cultural nuances that come with the already sensitive territory of interviewing and negotiating.
Interviewer: What are your future plans?
Kate: There are management opportunities here if I wish to pursue them. I may move back to the States for a few years. We'll see how I function in the American business sector in my Israeli "business attire" of jeans!
Interviewer: Would you recommend YEDA’s training to others?
Kate: I would most definitely recommend YEDA. It's a great way to hit the ground running with the skills, confidence, and street smarts you need to actually land a job and succeed at it.
A Day in the Life of a Marcom Manager
