To give you a little background, my current employer is not bad at all. The work is mostly stress free and relaxed, boss and colleagues are great people and the office atmosphere is very positive. Relations between everyone is more like between friends than colleagues. I work 7.5 hours a day, the schedule is flexible and hybrid (mix of office and work from home), there's no overtime and no working on weekends, company pays telephone bills and annual systematic health checkup and eyesight checkup.
However, I undersold myself at the job interview and my salary is 35% below market average for my experience and seniority, which I only recently figured out.
A friend of mine told me about an opening in a company he works for and told me that they have great pay and benefits and are in desperate need of more people. He told me I should apply to at least see what they would offer. And so I did.
The entire interviewing process took 2-3 weeks and was very pleasant. IQ and personality tests that took maybe 30 minutes and 2 rounds of interviews which took 45 minutes each and were very relaxed and respectful. I got the offer which is a 60% increase over my current salary.
This underlined just how much I'm underpaid at my current position.
I talked to my boss and the reaction was a combination of surprise, shock and disappointment. He is assured that he and the company did everything right by me which is true, apart from the pay (which is the most important thing, after all). He told me outright that they won't match the offer, if they offer any raise at all. They were planning to give me a raise in several months, after I spend more time on the project I'm working on. That raise would be 5-10% at most, the usual.
That told me everything I needed to know so I accepted the position at the new company and I smile every time I think about that sweet sweet 60% increase. In my industry, my pay is now slightly above the national average for my position and seniority which feels quite good. It's also double the national median salary (across all industries).