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I'm conscious that a list of some technologies and methodologies on a CV is uninformative and potentially misleading so would like to condense the actual verbatim work from my company's JIRA into a chronological list (anonymised and purged of sensitive information, of course).

The best record I've found for this (and best chance of doing it chronologically, which would be much more manageable and honest) is to visit profile -> activity stream, which requires constant clicking 'more' and is full of meaningless data ("user fixed a typo in title").

The next is to go through all the tickets one by one which is practically unfeasible.

It sounds excessive but a "master list" of (anonymised, cleaned) work would then be easier to tailor to an individual employer, and accurately reflect my experience. For instance:

Nov 2015

  • migrated Java 1.7 monolith into Java 1.8 microservices
  • trained new intern

Dec 2015

  • rewrote tests in scala
  • made coffee machine self-aware

2018-2019

  • asked to work on Golang greenfield project, primarily involved in creating new test framework
  • renewed our magazine subscription

What is the best way to do this with JIRA?


EDIT to be clear I am not going to present any potential employer with a ten year magnum opus. I want to have the extensive history for myself which I will then shorten and summarise later. Some of my best work will have been boring or difficult (despite showing initiative or hard work) and therefore not very memorable, so doing it all from memory is not helpful for me.

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    This isn't really a workplace question. It's to do with a specific software suite. Probably better asked elsewhere.
    – Kilisi
    Feb 14, 2021 at 15:40
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    You can not automate your resume. At best, you can only use such a log to jumpstart your memory. If your resume looks too much like a log, it's going to do a horrible job emphasizing or selling your skills. And at worst, it's going to end up in the trash bin. If you really can't draft your own resume, have a friend/relative help you, or hire a professional technical resume writer. In that case, having such a log you can show the person helping you will be super useful. Feb 14, 2021 at 20:44
  • It should also be noted that JIRA doesn't capture everything in your work life. In other words, you may have war stories, anecdotes, or interpersonal relationship issues that you resolved that are not reflected in those logs. So even with that log, be sure to plumb your memory for other things. Feb 14, 2021 at 20:55
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    Then, this question really belongs on another stackexchange, may be superuser.com? Feb 14, 2021 at 21:03
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    Like you, my memory is terrible. I am considering of updating my CV more often, perhaps every few months to add most tasks completed thus far and especially after something CV worthy. Then revise it either as of when I update it or when I start job hunting, even if it means removing 90% of what I added.
    – Monstar
    Feb 14, 2021 at 21:10

4 Answers 4

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A resume should be a brochure, not a biography. The only purpose of a resume is to pique the interest of an employer enough to get an interview. The interview is where you go into the details.

I wouldn't bother going into that much detail.

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  • the same problem applies for the interview in that case - there will be far more work that I've dealt with than I can remember off the top of my head
    – jMan
    Feb 14, 2021 at 20:56
  • Filter it down to the highlights and most relevant content. They don't need to know about every project, nor will they have time.
    – JohnFx
    Feb 15, 2021 at 0:58
  • @jMan an interview is a discussion about your experience, driven by their questions about what they want to know (as well as your questions about what you want to know about them). You don't outline everything you've ever done verbally. You give the best answers you can to the questions they ask, drawing on your most relevant experience.
    – Player One
    Feb 16, 2021 at 10:09
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Your resume should be a summary of your skills, experience, and accomplishments. It should not be an exhaustive list of every task or project you worked on.

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  • the problem is my short term memory doesn't extend much beyond the last few months plus a handful of significant memories across the years. I'd like to browse that 'brochure' in full and narrow it down later.
    – jMan
    Feb 14, 2021 at 20:46
  • It's fine to review your past work, just don't list every task or project on your resume. Provide a summary of your skills, experience, and accomplishments.
    – joeqwerty
    Feb 15, 2021 at 17:45
  • Instead of preparing your CV when you need one, note your accomplishments as they happen so that when you're updating your CV it's ready to go
    – tddmonkey
    Feb 16, 2021 at 14:48
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On my resumes I usually just say "assisted in the development and maintenance of tools to do [whatever]". If the interviewer has specific questions they can ask!

I mean, I've been at my current job for six years. If I were to list every individual task that took half a day or more it'd be a 100 page resume that'd need a table of contents and an index.

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  • I would like to find a happy medium where I can skim through all the old tasks I was involved in - and "assisted in" is unfortunately quite a broad category
    – jMan
    Feb 14, 2021 at 20:58
  • @jMan What I have in my CV is: 2015 - XXXX - Part of a team developing/maintaining the governmental registry of drivers. Technologies used X, Y, Z with focus on Z. The recruiter wants to know a brief overview of what technologies you use against a checklist. Everything else will be part of questioning in the interview or can be part of some more wordy document where you can mention this in greater detail.
    – mishan
    Feb 16, 2021 at 12:10
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This sounds like a task that really isn't going to be automated well. You've already mentioned that you have a few specific significant memories so there's a start. Those are going to be the tasks that people will review and care about when looking over a resume. Hiring departments will care more about a user that was able to implement feature X using framework Y, methodology Z, or new technology Q. They will not really care about completing n tickets over the course of your career.

The best way that I would recommend what you're describing is to personally maintain a log of your accomplishments. This can be individual tickets in JIRA, or can be scoped to projects. The benefit of tracking your accomplishments as they occur can be significant across various domains. There's a quantifiable benefit relating to accomplishments that can be seen when you notice these (in a pat yourself on the back for a good job done way). You can also log when things didn't go smoothly, which will help identify methods of improvement. Additionally, tracking these tasks will help with Annual Review time because you've got a solid list of accomplishments that you've personally tracked that can be referenced. Beyond all of that, you will now have what you're aiming for with a list of accomplishments that can be referenced in your CV. This will enable you to pick out a few of the major accomplishments and add that to the CV.

For a baseline, I would only list anything that you can actually remember working on. That will be a project that you can remember and reflect upon. It could be detrimental to have items in your CV that you put in as a result of an automated JIRA dump, that you then don't recall much about the project. How do you respond when the interviewer asks about that particular project? Take care to keep your resume focused, but also focused on tasks and projects that you will be able to reflect and elaborate upon in an interview setting.

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