You just learned the person who does the same job as you earns more than you do. Now what?

Discovering that a colleague with the same job title is earning more than you is never fun, though it is quite common.

According to a global survey of 1,850 workers by resume building platform Kickresume, 56% have discovered that someone with the same job at their company is earning more than them, and another 24% have their suspicions.

“People are much less willing to discuss their salaries than we thought they would be — there’s still quite a stigma around it,” says Kickresume’s head of content Martin Poduska, who helped conduct the study. “The weirdest thing is that we didn’t identify a good reason for it.”

Poduska explains that compensation is far from a precise science, and that keeping the topic taboo only works to the benefit of the employer. “The secrecy that surrounds it preven