You walk into the conference room. The hiring manager smiles warmly, asks about your experience, nods thoughtfully at your answers. Then comes the question: “What’s your current salary?”
Your instinct says to dodge. Experts agree—you’re under no obligation to answer, and revealing the number gives away your leverage. Smart play.
But what if you didn’t play it smart? What if you just… told them?
Picture this: You casually mention your current comp. The room goes quiet. The hiring manager’s eyes widen. Suddenly the VP of Engineering leans forward. “Did they say $120k?” Someone’s phone buzzes—they’re texting finance. Within minutes, the interview transforms into an impromptu Dutch auction. The original offer gets bumped. Then bumped again. A director you’ve never met appears in the doorway with a counter-offer. Someone’s frantically Googling your GitHub profile to justify going higher.
By the time you leave, three different departments are bidding against each other, the CEO has been looped in via Slack, and you’ve accidentally started a turf war that will be discussed in the next all-hands meeting.
The beauty of this strategy? You never had to negotiate. You simply told the truth, and let basic human competitive instinct do the heavy lifting. Sure, you might also accidentally crater the entire compensation band for your level and create a three-month HR audit. But that’s their problem now.
The real lesson: keeping your salary private is the rational move. But rationality is boring, and watching a hiring committee spontaneously combust over a number is comedy gold.