We never gave out freebie skills during game play as an example, you have the free goat herding skill. If there is only a 1-3 level gap between the new player and the group, that's not much to overcome. In RM, there are hefty bonus XP for the "First times" of a lot accomplishments; first kill, first time encountering undead, first time encountering beast, first E-crit, etc. There are also XP increases for fighting bad guys of higher levels, where the is an XP decrease for the higher ranked players fighting lower level baddies. This slows the XP gain for the higher ranks while boosting the XP gain for the lower ranks. The higher level PCs could help the lower level PC survive a battle longer allowing the lower level PC to gain that precious XP. It also takes less XP for lower ranked PCs to level up.
When we started a PC at the same level as the existing party for expediency, usually level 5, the new player didn't get any freebie skills or items. It simply meant that this PC started their adventuring career at this age with these skills and really has nothing to show for it as they haven't been in any adventures. However, in RM2, there are plenty of Background Options tables that players can roll on and nearly all of them get a +5 to +20 magic or non-magic item to start the game with and if the other party members have a cache of goodies already, most would share the loot to help the new player gear up a little better and to help their own chances of success.