Salary negotiations are rarely fair, especially when companies expect candidates to reveal everything up front.

This job seeker knew the game and decided to play it better when asked about their current pay.

The end result was a satisfying pay bump that could have only been achieved with a little white lie.

Keep reading for the full story!

I lied about my current salary in an interview

So I’ve been job hunting and had an interview last week.

They asked what I’m making now, and I bumped it up by 15k.

Not crazy, but enough to push their offer higher.

This gamble paid off big time for the applicant.

Got the job.

New salary is 20k more than what I actually make (not the inflated number).

Feeling zero guilt about it.

The job seeker justifies their choice further.

These companies have entire departments dedicated to paying us as little as possible.

They lie to us constantly about “budget constraints” while execs get bonuses.

If they wanted honesty, they shouldn’t have made the job market a game where we’re expected to negotiate against ourselves.

This gamble really paid off in the long run!

What did Reddit make of this?

The halcyon days of yearly raises is a thing of the past.

This commenter thinks this behavior is just good negotiation.

If it were this commenter, they would have asked for even more.

HR can sometimes go out of their way just to lowball a candidate.

The company got a qualified employee, and the employee got the salary they deserved.

In this job market, you gotta do whatcha gotta do!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.