The Woman Who Applied For Her Own Job At Higher Pay Says She's 'Overwhelmed' By The Support
A woman who applied for her own job after seeing the listing offered at over $30,000 more than her salary says she's overwhelmed by the support she's received since going public with her story.
On March 7, Kimberly Nguyen began tweeting about being underpaid and her frustration over the new job posting. Now she hopes all the attention her story has gotten since will help her secure a new job.
"I'm honestly really overwhelmed. I didn't expect for this tweet to go viral. It was simply a moment of frustration and anger," she told Narcity.
Although Nguyen expressed she was simply "whining" on the internet when she first started tweeting, clearly it resonated with a lot of people.
"I'm really grateful for the support from others who are encouraging me to demand more," she said.
In her original tweet, the New York City woman said she found a job posting on LinkedIn for the job she's basically doing now, but for more money, so she decided to apply.
By Thursday afternoon, that tweet had over 11.5 million views.
Nguyen works as a UX writer and her LinkedIn says she works at Photon, although she wouldn't confirm specifically who her employer is.
In her continued tweets Nguyen expressed frustration with pay inequity. She also said she's told her managers numerous times that she knows she's being underpaid.
"I've had multiple discussions about trying to get a salary bump since December. But they haven't really been going anywhere," she said.
"I'm actually very concerned that because I'm in a weird contractor situation, I'll be let go."
In one of her tweets Nguyen also mentioned an emergency meeting she had with other "underpaid" UX writers this week to discuss the situation.
"Long story short, there's a lot of bureaucracy and red tape, as you can imagine happens at any job, but nothing can be done at this time, and the job posting is possibly an internal job posting," she said.
Nguyen has received a lot of online support since her tweets went viral and she's been getting advice on other job prospects.
She confirms that she's had a few leads and remains optimistic about the opportunities out there.
As for what she hopes comes out of all this public reaction to her story, Nguyen says she would like to use the visibility to try to get a new job offer that "better fits" her "compensation expectations."
"I also hope that people continue to push for pay transparency laws. Pay shouldn't be such a contentious subject."
This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.
