Finding the job you want isn’t always an easy feat, and can require a bit of out of the box thinking to stand out. Which is exactly what a woman from North Carolina did.
Karly Pavlinac Blackburn, 27, went viral on LinkedIn of all places, because she’d sent a cake to Nike that had her resume printed on it.
Last week, Blackburn posted her story.
” A couple of weeks ago I sent my resume on a cake to Nike ,” the marketing professional by trade wrote. “Yes, an edible resume on top of a cake. Nike was having a huge celebration for JDI day (Just Do It day). LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick + Other Megastars were at the event.”
She continued stating that she wanted to get the attention of Valiant Labs, a division of Nike.
“They are not currently hiring for any positions on that team, but I wanted to find some way for the team to know who I was. What better way than to send a cake to a big party.”
RELATED STORIES
So, she set out to find a way to get a cake to Nike headquarters.
This would prove to be a bit of a challenge, since Blackburn is from North Carolina , and the Nike HQ is in Beaverton, Oregon.
She writes that she got help from a former colleague named Trent Gander in order to come up with the idea.
But when the time came to bring the cake to Nike, it was all thanks to the help of an Instacart driver.
The driver’s name is Denise Baldwin, and she was a real superstar.
Blackburn wrote, “I talked to Denise on the phone and she said to me, ‘Karly I know this is important to you, and I will do whatever IT takes to get this cake to where it needs to be.'”
“When Denise was asked to leave the cake on the table at the front desk she said, ‘no, I need to see this go in their hands.'”
“‘I promised Karly I would get this cake to the right person.’ Denise navigated the Nike campus, all while having a sleeping child in one arm and a ½ sheet cake in the other.”
Baldwin would later say that Blackburn had inspired her.
She continued her post by saying that, regardless of if Nike decided to hire her or not, Baldwin told her, ” You have inspired me. This was meant to be. I am a mom and I am tired of doing Instacart. I know I have more abilities and qualifications to get something better. I’m so glad this worked for the both of us.”
And that alone made the effort worth it.
And the effort definitely inspired a lot of LinkedIn users out there. The post has over 100,000 reactions, and thousands of people shared and commented on the post as well.
While some took issue with Blackburn’s unconventional approach, many others applauded her dedication.
Comments flooded in with people applauding Blackburn’s creativity, and there were even some willing to meet with her about potential job opportunities.
In the end, it definitely did what it was supposed to.
Blackburn, who’s looking for a job in marketing, managed to market herself in a creative and attention-grabbing way. And that really is the name of the game.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
