[cname]

That sounds nice, but it seems like most if not all work relationships are based on at least dishonesty through omission if not outright lies.

Employers rarely give a full and true picture of what it's like to work somewhere. It's mostly "everything's great" and "all the people are great" and so on. You might get a bland "we need to work on X" if you press them, but they're very unlikely to be direct about the day-to-day drudgery, dysfunction, etc.

Due to the asymmetrical power relationship of employers/employees, I can't see a real ethical problem with lying in response to a question they shouldn't be asking in the first place.