This position was for a 6-month contractor role for $46/hr. to support Frontdoor (American Home Shield) as an instructional designer. After the initial screening call with the recruiting agency, I was scheduled for an interview with the hiring manager. I was also told that I would have to demonstrate my elearning skills during the interview using Articulate Storyline 360 and that I needed my own software license. I found the demonstration piece a little odd since I had shared my portfolio with them and it already contained ample evidence of my Storyline skills. During the day of the interview, I was greeted briefly by two individuals on the hiring manager's team who I did not expect as they were not listed on the calendar invite. I was then informed by one of them that the hiring manager I was supposed to meet was "out of the office" that day but they did not offer any explanation or apology. While I understand this scheduling change may have been made earlier that day and may not have appeared to be a big deal, a short email notifying the candidate of any changes is a polite and professional gesture that shows consideration for them so they are not caught off guard. Notifying them of any changes regarding the interviewers also allows candidates to look up their information on LinkedIn to learn more about their background and feel better prepared before meeting with them. Throughout the meeting, the two interviewers came across as stiff, dry, and unfriendly which was another red flag about their communication style. For the first 30 minutes of the interview, I was asked to demonstrate my basic Storyline skills through a series of eight tasks. Most of the skills they asked me to demonstrate were quite basic (flip and align images, add triggers to create two branched scenes, create quiz questions, create a slider to trigger a layer, etc.) After the demonstration, they began to share more details about the role which in my opinion is how they should have started the interview. This would have provided some valuable insight so we could ensure we were all aligned before moving forward with the demonstration. However, during our discussion of the role, I quickly realized none of the skills they asked me to demonstrate seemed complex enough since they indicated later on that they required advanced gamification skills for the role. They even indicated that the role may require experience with Vyond, Javascript, and the usage of an LMS, none of which were mentioned anywhere in the job description or in any part of the skills they needed me to demonstrate. So not only were the skills they asked me to demonstrate too basic for the role, but the advanced gamification experience they required was not mentioned at all in the job description as well. This was quite baffling to me. When I inquired further during the interview about what specific type of gamification they needed, since this can be interpreted differently depending on the developer, they revealed that they are looking for someone to build out a full game in Storyline as part of each course's design. This equates to what is called "Level 4 e-learning" (the highest and most complex there is) and is NOT your typical elearning development role where simple progress meters, points, badges, and levels are used in conjunction with standard course content. While I have experience in advanced gamification (where characters, stories, and fun challenges are built into the game), the job description should have been more specific as this was crucial information before agreeing to an hourly rate. Based on our discussions about the work needed, they also did not seem to have adequate time built in for internal reviews of their courses and didn't seem to care about iterating and building them in stages to ensure team alignment on the design. This obviously creates risk as it can lead to wasted efforts, redundancy, rushed reviews, and poor quality checks before finalizing each course. This may also explain why they were seeking more elearning support to meet their tight timelines. However, since the proposed hourly rate of $46 was quite low in my opinion for the required work and since the two-week timeline they shared for completing each 30-minute gamified course was somewhat aggressive based on their requirements and the high level of effort, I decided this opportunity was no longer a good fit. Also, this apparent bait-and-switch in changing the requirements of the role does not allow candidates to negotiate a higher rate as it becomes locked in at this point. In short, the job description was not accurate or helpful, and the interviewers' approach lacked a logical sequence (live skill demonstration before discussing role). Also, in place of the live demonstration, they would have been better off simply asking me to complete a more complex assignment to demonstrate my gamification skills and giving me a few days to complete it. I'm not sure what they were thinking.