A stunned New Yorker applied for the job she already has after she spotted her employer listing it online with a higher salary.
When user experience writer Kimberly Nguyen noticed her bosses had placed a job posting on LinkedIn, she took a closer look.
To her amazement, she discovered that it was the job she was currently doing with an advertised salary range of $32k-$90k (£26k-70k) - more than they were paying her at the time.
A bit of context: employers in the Big Apple have to disclose salary ranges for all advertised positions and understandably angry, Kimberly took to her keyboard to vent her fury on Twitter - and the reaction from other users was so strong, with over 12m views, the live tweets of her disappointment have since gone viral.
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The string of tweets reads: “My company just listed on LinkedIn a job posting for what I’m currently doing (so we’re hiring another UX writer) and now thanks to salary transparency laws, I see that they intend to pay this person $32k-$90k more than they currently pay me, so I applied.”
She continued: “I don’t want to hear one more peep out of them about diversity, equity, and inclusion. I don’t wanna see any more of our C-suite execs recommend books for women’s history month. There were tangible actions they could’ve taken and they chose to perform these values. No thank you.”
Her outrage is clear as she tweets: “I have also been arguing for months about the pay inequity. I have told my managers multiple times that I know I’m being underpaid. I have gotten the runaround, and they know they can do this right now in a tough labor market.”
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She then asked for the financial support of Twitter users, asking them to buy her debut poetry collection, before she checks LinkedIn again and furiously tweets: “AHAHA THEY TOOK DOWN THE LINKEDIN JOB LISTING”
The job ad then reappears to her amusement and disbelief as the company tries to explain it away. They claim that the post was supposed to be internal and wasn’t intended for anyone external to apply for but 'public companies legally have to post jobs even if it's an internal conversion'.
However, she notes: “...but that doesn't solve the fact that someone internally is now still going to make $32k+ more???"
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The issue was then taken to a meeting with her bosses with Kimberly updating her followers that none of her colleagues make close to the bottom end of the posted salary range but nobody is getting a pay rise - and they were even being threatened with layoffs to get them to ‘shut up’.
Playing the rule of rightfully disgruntled colleague perfectly, Kimberly signed off her string of tweets with a shout out for any leads for remote-working UX writer roles before joking she’d be 'living under a bridge next week'.
Here’s hoping she lands her dream job - and the salary to match - soon.
Topics: Life, Real Life, Technology
Amelia Jones