One of my classmates from graduate school reached out to me regarding a job posting at my company (we are looking to add another person on my team, because we are so busy).

I found out that the salary posted for the role is $40k more than my current salary (the person filling this role will be performing the same functions in the same group in the same office and will likely be filled by someone with less or equivalent experience than me).

What can I do in this situation to try and raise my current salary to what we seem willing to pay for a new person? A sudden $40k raise doesn't seem realistic but I was just wondering if someone could help me figure out how to deal with this.

Why don't you apply for the job yourself? Does the company not promote from within?

Are you sure it's the same position? A $40K difference seems like an awful lot. Its not unusual for a job posting to be higher than current employees if the market changes, but not that much higher. I suggest you sit down with HR and ask to discuss this issue.