Interviews where the job description radically alters from what you applied for

Seriously I am so annoyed with the employer right now. Called for interview and turns out the job isn't even a journalism position, but the guys on the panel are like "ah sorry, we better explain this to you, the application form was very vague" and I'm there having to decide if I want to do the job I've just attended an interview for. all psyched up for an interview where the panel are almost telling me the job is crap and I won't want it but I'm a great candidate and hey maybe it's not so bad after all, honest!

Your opening gambit: ask them why there was a need to 'shift perspective' on the position under consideration?

I held back but just discussed the "new" position....was so farcical. Even they were like "well we don't expect you to decide right now if you want the job". The job I am sitting here being interviewed for.

Your employer is forever making strange changes for last-minute tactical reasons so it shows some kind of insight to try to get on the level and find out what they are.

FWIW sounds like they do in fact want you.

Yeah they do I think, job is totally not right for me tho, I definitely don't want it.

At least you know now, rather than them fudging through an interview as vague as the application form and then turning up for a totally different job from the one you thought you were getting.

As they say in Amsterdam, "the girl in the window is not the girl you get". I find these kind of vague stuff suspicious, bur resiliency is a good thing, so why not. There is a crisis out there, take it, you can quit later.

this kind

In a way, that's what interviews are for, they're supposed to help you tell if a job is right just as they're supposed to tell the employers if you are right for the job. And it's good that they came clean about it before you accepted....

otm - i've been on the other side of this quite a few times, finding myself talking good candidates out of misrepresented jobs that i know they'd hate

I'm sure many of you have seen the signs (probably on Craig's List nowadays) around college campuses that say something like "Student Work / $12.00" w/ a phone number (notice they don't say $12/hr., and the amount has probably gone up. I remember it being 9-$12 in the late 90s). Anway, during the summer after my freshman year, I was in sore need of employment & was desperate/intrigued/enough of a sucker to respond to one of these ambigious ads. The woman at the other end of the phone was all mysterious, and going on about this "great opportunity" without going into specifics, and could I please come for an "interview?" At this point, I smelled a rat, but I was still foolishly intrigued to such an extent that, yes, I went. And, boy, they couldn't sign me up fast enough to sell those goddam knives to my friends and family. Well, they tried at least. I think I delivered pizza instead.