I’m in the humanities field, graduated from a state R1 (I don’t know if this background is needed). Recently I got an interview request from a liberal arts college that’s hiring for a generalists to teach foundation courses in my field. This college is a HBCU, and I’m not of African-American descent. My specialty is also not in the foundational field (like how everyone reads Shakespeare but not everyone is a Shakespearian scholar), I got into my own niche and the experience I had with the related core curriculum is confined to my years as a TA. I do have a lot of teaching experiences otherwise. Although I’m grateful for the opportunity, I do not know why they think I’m an ideal candidate (I thought I’d just try).
Given how fast they moved from reviewing my applications to requesting interviews—two days, literally—I wonder if something horrible happened, in an academic sense: search failure, early termination, etc and they are kind of desperate. I don’t know if this should raise any alarms.
I’m asking for suggestion and insights on what to prepare and what to anticipate when interviewing for a position that you don’t see yourself as a perfect fit for.