A few years ago, I got hired at my job at the same time as a man about 15 years my senior. He got hired in at around 20k more a year than me (all of our salaries are public). No big deal— he’s got years of experience on me and they’re not the same exact roles.
Then I find out that they made all kinds of exceptions for him to get hired. I had to do an all day interview and an hour long presentation for the entire organization. I was interviewed and judged by multiple groups of people and I competed for the position against other candidates. He was a friend of a friend of the director and only had to do an hour long interview with administration- no real search was conducted meaning he was the only one who interviewed.
He turned out to be a blowhard who talked a big game and accomplished next to nothing. Big surprise. He was let go eventually. Meanwhile, I accomplished a lot but realized it was literally impossible for me to move up or make more money in my organization because of the track they hired me in. My boss is awesome and advocates for me to move to a different track and to get merit increases but based on the math, I knew I could never really catch up. Honestly my breaking point was when I was on a search committee for a junior position and they offered the candidate fresh out of school 2k more than I was currently making.
I applied for and got a leadership role at another organization. 13k raise. Better benefits. Completely remote. Honestly it’s a millennial workers dream job. When I told HR I got the surprised Picchu face and told they could have done XYZ to keep me… including a higher salary. This is the same person who argued with me over the 2k extra I wanted when I was initially hired. So they knew the whole time I was worth more but they didn’t want to pay it and now they’re shocked I’m leaving.