The resume ended on a cake, but the friendship that resulted is freshly baked.
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On September 2, the day after Karly Pavlinac Blackburn was fired, she spoke with friend Trent Gander about how to promote her applications.
“He said, ‘If you’re applying for a creative company, be creative. Put your resume on a cake. Put your resume on a billboard,'” Blackburn told businesskinda.com.
So she did – and sent it to Nike.
Blackburn’s LinkedIn message about the entire event sparked more than 4,000 comments and 100,000 likes, including for the heroism of (and now friendship with) Denise Baldwin, who delivered the cake via Instacart all the way to a Nike building during a party at the Beaverton campus.
A wonderful idea
After being fired from a previous position, Blackburn learned about the Valiant Labs division at Nike, a business incubator. She said the company spoke to her entrepreneurial spirit (Blackburn had previously founded and sold a fitness app), so she decided to try and grab the company’s attention by sending a cake with her resume on it to Nike’s 50th anniversary” (Do Just It) Day” at the Nike World Headquarters, the company’s flagship, on September 8.
Blackburn found an Albertson’s supermarket in the area that had the technology to print photos on a cake and booked an Instacart driver the morning of the party.
“[I was] a bit surprised,” the Instacart driver, Denise Baldwin, told to see a resume on the cake businesskinda.com.
She called Blackburn and learned of her plan and promised to get the cake into the hands of her desired target: Mac Myers, an operations specialist at Valiant Labs.
“When I said that, I knew in my heart that I wouldn’t just leave it with anyone,” Baldwin added.
Don’t take no for an answer
Baldwin drove to the Nike campus and told the security guards to take the cake to Myers. They eventually found out which building Myers was in, and security let her in to find it, where she found receptionists who assured her they would take the cake to Myers, Baldwin said.
“I was like, ‘No, I have to wait for him to come,'” Baldwin said.
Myers came down within minutes and Baldwin handed him the cake and sent a photo to Blackburn. (Myers has Nice find a few of the related LinkedIn posts, but did not respond to a request for comment.)
Why work so hard to deliver a resume pie to someone she’d never met?
Since COVID, “A lot of people just changed,” she said. “The things people say they are going to do are not coming true,” she added.
Running errands for work, Baldwin said she feels a responsibility to deliver to people who for any reason can’t leave the house — or who need a resume, she added. “I treat every customer as if they were a family member,” she added.
Freshly baked friendship
Baldwin and Blackburn have been talking on the phone almost every day since. Blackburn helped Baldwin set up a Linkedin profile. After Blackburn went viral, she learned that Baldwin was going to the library to check the comments and messages. So Blackburn sent her a laptop.
“It’s really been a godsend,” Baldwin said. “I’m a single mom living in Instacart order. I don’t have much right now.”
Baldwin has three children and is pregnant with another child. She previously worked for the state of Oregon but is hopeful she can take up work that would be flexible to care for her children, ideally interacting with others.
Blackburn reached out to Nike by phone on Monday and has been in touch with others, she said. Both Baldwin and Blackburn are hopeful that they will get a job out of all this.
“She’ll stay with me until I find a job — until we both find a job where we’re successful and comfortable,” Baldwin said.
Nike did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.