I was today glancing through several pages (like this one and this one ) collecting UML questions (supposedly) asked in real job interviews.

Assuming they are real questions, to me, they are clear examples of what NOT to ask in a job interview. What's the point in asking how many different diagrams exist in UML? or how to indicate static methods in UML class diagrams? or even worse, who developed and when the UML? .

A correct answer to these questions only proves that the candidate knows the UML notation but they are absolutely useless to determine if the candidate is good at modeling that, in fact, it is the only thing that really matters (or at least it should be IMHO). Everybody is able to memorize facts about a notation but, unfortunately, not everybody has the skills to apply it correctly on a given software project. For instance, as a UML instructor myself, I've seen many students completely unable to determine when a domain concept should be model as a class, when as an attribute or when as an association, even though they perfectly know the definition and graphical representation of each of these three constructs.

Btw, it is even more worrisome the fact that these questions can also be easily found in university exams. Some lecturers still don't get that they should teach modeling not UML!, UML is just a way to express models (and nowadays, only one of the many available alternatives for that).

Sorry for the rant but I feel a little bit better now.

If you enjoyed this post you can subscribe to this Software Modeling blog and/or follow me on twitter or through the portal's mailing list . And if you really liked it help me pass it on to others by bookmarking and sharing the post using the links below: