A product designer from New York came across a job listing put up by her company for the same role but with a higher salary. Kimberly Nguyen decided to reapply for the job and what happened next had Twitter hooked. Her Twitter thread narrating the incident received more than 12 million views and is now viral.
"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," Nguyen tweeted.
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.— Kimberly Nguyen (@knguyenpoetry) March 7, 2023
"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 labour market," she said in a separate tweet.
The company responded by deleting the job listing on LinkedIn. Only to put it up again. The company claimed it was an internal posting and wasn't meant for anyone to apply to externally because public companies legally have to post jobs even if it's an internal conversion, Nguyen said. She, however, added that the incident highlights the lack of pay equity.
"Even if it's an internal conversion...but that doesn't solve the fact that someone internally is now still going to make $32K+ more," Nguyen said.
After the Twitter thread went viral, Nguyen, who is also a poet, received an outpouring of support with several Twitter users encouraging her to look for a better-paying job. She ended the Twitter thread by announcing that she had just begun to look for a new product designer job.
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