I work for a number of agencies where I go to different locations to promote products. I applied for a gig that was to help setup and organize a tech conference. Looking back it was strange that it was grouped in with the the promoting type jobs, but sometimes it happens and the work sounded interesting.
Anyway, the interviewer started by telling me that I can skip a question if I don't want to answer it. Then she went into what I'd like to call "rapid fire question mode". She asked a lot of short questions one after another. None of the questions matched up with the job posting, for example she asked if I'm certified to work with food and liquor and what kind of vehicle I drive.
She then moved onto more open ended questions like "why do you want to work for us?". I didn't handle it well but told her I'd like to speak about the job specifically. She told me I wasn't giving her enough to work with so couldn't ask more questions.
Could this have been some sort of scam? How could I have handled the situation better? I could have added "the posting said nothing about food and liquor" or taken the lead and said "can we talk about what the job is doing first?". The gig was only a few days of work and I was surprised by the large number of questions with no chance for discussion.
What was meant by telling me I didn't have to answer questions?
I spoke to someone else who had done the interview and he said after the "off-topic" questions the interviewer got to the actual job. He said it was so they could build a profile in case they have other work that would fit. If this is true, I find it a bit unprofessional, or at least wished this had been explained.