[1] After an underwhelming 2007 season he scored greater success in 2008, becoming the 2008 World Junior Cross Country Champion and then taking the 10,000 m silver at the African Championships.

[2] A native of the Bale Province, Ethiopia, he became attracted to the idea of professional running after seeing his countryman Haile Gebrselassie beat Paul Tergat to win gold at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

[3] He began competing internationally for his country at the age of 16 and he won the 3000 metres silver medal at the 2005 World Youth Championships in Athletics, finishing behind compatriot Abreham Cherkos.

He failed to finish the junior race at the 2007 IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Mombasa, later saying that "heat and the heaviness of the air suffocated me".

[14] He returned to good form in 2008: he won the national junior cross country title but remarked (in reference to his poor 2007) "I had some personal problems which I do not want to speak about.

[20][21] He attempted to defend his world junior 10,000 m title but was out-raced by Kenyans Josphat Kipkoech Bett and Titus Mbishei thus had to settle for the bronze medal.

[22] He won the Giro di Castelbuono 10K road race in Sicily in July,[23] and brought his track season to a close two weeks later with an anticlimactic 15th at the Memorial van Damme.

[28] His disappointment at not being selected for the 2009 World Championships in Athletics led him to change his location, as he decided to move to Saitama in Japan to work with the Honda corporate running team.

In 2014, Jeilan took his first attempt at longer distances in a major race, running the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon in 1:01:47, to finish tenth overall.