‘Bait and switch’ jobs are surprisingly common. Here’s what to do if it happens to you

Corporate lawyer Jessica thought she’d landed her dream job as the lead legal counsel at a tech startup, with the exciting opportunity to grow her career quickly. Yet as soon as she started, the dream unraveled.

“I joined as the first lawyer in the business, and that whole job was sold to me as ‘You’re going to be the first in the door, so you’ll set up all the processes.’ To me it was the dream role,” says Jessica, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect her reputation and privacy.

“My manager was the person [who] interviewed me, and she really sold the dream to me as, ‘This is going to be an amazing experience for you.’ My interview experience was great, so I took the job on the basis that my career would go in the direction she’d described.”

Within two weeks, it became apparent to Jessica that her manager only wanted her to do one thing: manage contracts. She wasn’t able to give any legal advice, which is what she’d been told initially was the focus of her role.

In a number of one-on-ones with her manager, Jessica tried to resolve the situation by speaking about the difference between what she’d been led to believe about the role and the reality once she started. Her efforts yielded the opposite effect. Jessica’s manager told her she wasn’t actually capable of doing the job, and then criticized her for speaking out of turn in meetings.

She stuck it out for more than a year, hoping that building relationships with new hires, and with the founders, would help move her role in the direction she had originally envisioned. Feeling burned out and betrayed after butting heads with her manager on many other occasions, Jessica saw no option but to quit.

New job, different responsibilities

Unfortunately, what Jessica went through is not unique. Some 53% of employees report that companies have advertised job responsibilities that differed significantly from reality once they started their role, according to a recent survey by hiring software company Greenhouse.

But when the dream job turns into a nightmare, is quitting your only option? It depends on the circumstances behind the bait and switch, says Jenn Fenwick, leadership coach and career strategist.

It could be that in a fast-growing company, a role’s focus has genuinely changed, and not updating candidates ended up as a simple oversight. Scope can also expand in terms of projects and teams, with candidates also not being notified, as companies hope they’ll see it as a positive thing. Or sometimes this happens when there isn’t the budget to increase the salary package, and companies desperately hope candidates just won’t say anything and will stick it out, Fenwick says.

What to do if it happens to you

In any case, new hires who find themselves in this situation should first find out if there’s been an intentional deception, or if it was a mistake that can be resolved, Fenwick suggests.

“That should then form the basis of whether you want to find a way of making it work or not—whether this has come from a good place . . . or whether trust has been broken—and ultimately, whether this is the environment for you,” Fenwick says.

She advises documenting exactly what was communicated in the recruitment process, and how that’s not matching up, before asking for a meeting with HR to relay concerns and discuss potential solutions.

“Is your situation one where you can make a change? Could there be other internal opportunities that may be more appropriate? Can you make this work out to your advantage?” Fenwick asks. “What is the scope for further salary negotiation? Could it turn out that you do like the people and there is a level of trust, and it’s been an honest oversight—or has it been deceitful?”

Cassidy Edwards, director of people operations at sneaker trading platform Tradeblock, says she once experienced a shift in scope before starting a new role. But the company was open and honest about it, and Edwards ended up accepting the role, as the changes were fully explained, with an emphasis on how the evolving role would positively impact the future of the business.

“While this isn’t an easy conversation because of the time, energy, and effort that the job seeker has invested into the company hiring process, it does show accountability on the employer side,” Edwards says.

Why companies do it

Not apprising candidates of changes to a role can be an underhanded way of enticing an attractive candidate to join a company. But this doesn’t usually end well, according to Edwards.

“It will surely come at the cost of retention, engagement, morale, and, ultimately, productivity. This is a huge red flag for job seekers and a foreshadowing of [poor] organizational culture. Companies lose key skilled talent and it’s wrong on all fronts.”

Edwards advises companies to create and regularly update an “ideal candidate profile,” which she says can create deeper conversations with hiring managers for specific talent needs, versus a generic job description that may end up needing revisions. “HR and talent teams need to be included in understanding the business objectives and how they may change,” she says.

Legal options

What about a candidate’s legal rights when taking a job they were missold? It’s not illegal to expand or reduce a certain role’s responsibilities. But in certain circumstances there may be legal protections available to a new employee faced with a bait and switch situation, says Kellen Safreed of law firm Sherin and Lodgen. An employer’s failure to abide by the terms and conditions of contractually agreed upon employment may give rise to claims for breach of contract, and an employee could be eligible for severance benefits.

If the scope of responsibilities is much bigger than what was communicated prior to the employee’s employment start date, Janelle Romero, managing associate at Consumer Attorneys, says she would encourage the employee to do what they can to excel in that role with those responsibilities. That can give them the power to ask for a raise.

“In that conversation, it is extremely important to communicate that the employee agreed to $ salary for XYZ responsibilities. Had the employee known that the expectation was much greater than XYZ, the employee would not have agreed to the offered salary and instead have felt that a salary of $$ would have been more appropriate,” Romero says.

The company should know that it would likely be cheaper to give this raise than have to recruit another employee, she says, especially if the employee has thrived in the role.

But Peter Rahbar, founder of employment law firm the Rahbar Group, says bait and switch jobs are always a red flag. Whether or not a change in scope was an intentional miscommunication, it’s time to start looking for a new role, Rahbar says, noting, “Any employer who would either lie to you or move you out of your job without discussion or consent cannot be trusted.”