Millennial Job Hunter Sent Her Resume to Nike…On a Cake (Just Eat It?)

It’s a tough job market out there. Though there appear to be tons of jobs, good luck actually getting an offer. We know a lot of people right now who have been applying to everything under the sun, and even landing interviews, only to get ghosted by recruiters and hiring managers alike. But one North Carolina millennial took matters into her own hands – literally – by baking her resume onto a cake and sending it to her dream employer, Nike.

Now, before you say that she got her audience all wrong, consider that many people work out just so they can pig out later. (Hey, we get it, it’s called balance.) So maybe what 27-year-old Karly Pavlinac Blackburn did makes sense. She had her eye on Valiant Labs, one of Nike’s startup incubators, but was told they weren’t hiring. Still, she didn’t let reality deter her. Instead, she had her resume made into an edible image that got frosted on a sheet cake at Albertsons grocery store.

As she explained in a now-viral LinkedIn post (which we didn’t even know was a thing; way to be a trailblazer, Karly!), she wanted to “show up in a creative way” and decided to do so on the day athletic brand was celebrating Just Do It Day, an event that included big names in the sports industry like LeBron James and Colin Kaepernick. Her cake was delivered to Nike’s Beaverton, Oregon, campus right in the middle of the celebration.

“I knew navigating Nike’s large campus was a feat, but combine a giant party with tons of people on top of that adds another layer of complexity to this delivery,” Blackburn wrote in her LinkedIn post. Luckily, the Instacart delivery person, Denise Baldwin, was just as determined to see this effort succeed as Blackburn was. Baldwin muscled her way into the building with a sleeping child on her arm – and doing so made her realize she was made for more.

“Regardless if I get a job at Nike, the best thing to hear that day was Denise saying, ‘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,’” Blackburn reported.

In the end, Blackburn says the point of her resume cake wasn’t necessarily to get hired – because this delicious, devious plan elevated more than just her professional profile.

“Delivering the cake that day inspired one person. And maybe this post will inspire more. Helping people realize their potential is what I love to do,” Blackburn wrote. “At the end of the day it’s not about the cake at all. It is about making things happen and taking a chance outside of the box. Denise did it. She did whatever it took to help me get that cake to Nike. And that is what I do. This is why I am different than the pack.”

And humble, too, clearly. Whether or not you endorse this kind of professional PR stunt, one thing we can all agree on is: this resume takes the cake.

Cover Photo: andresr (Getty Images)