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A NY book editor named Ellen O'Hara is getting quite a response to her post earlier this week on Daily Worth that was headlined, "A Little White Lie in Salary Negotiation." She wrote that when applying for a job it was all right to inflate one's current salary - and then ask for more. "I learned that it pays, literally, to be strong and assertive when it comes to money," O'Hara wrote. "My only regret is that I'd been such a wimp about it for so long." In other words, it's okay to lie. Well, Daily Worth has taken down the post after getting complaints from HR executives. "We didn't realize how negatively this would be received," Daily Worth founder Amanda Steinberg wrote on her site. NYT Bucks blog asks readers what they think. Some comments:
Lying is unethical, and also foolish, when it's about something that can easily be checked. If the prospective employer calls your former employer and finds out you were lying, you might not get the job at all. Who wants to hire a liar?...Discussions of salary are negotiations, and bluffing is not the same as lying. No fair negotiation starts with someone with less information giving away the one critical piece of info they do have. When employers are required to state upfront the most they'd be willing to pay (and what they pay one's peers, without names attached), then and only then would I think applicants are morally bound to be truthful about their current salary.
...Employers will, generally speaking, do everything they can to shortchange their employees and pay them as little as possible to still retain their services. This is one way employees can even the playing field a bit.
...Did I read the question right? Is lying ethical?? I guess I'll have to say, "no" on that. Second question: Should the post advising lying have been retracted. I'll go with a "yes" on that one.
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted
until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.