Woman's desperate CV stunt in bid to get a job divides opinion
A job seeker’s ploy to get noticed has gone viral, but the internet remains divided on whether she is a “genius” or “irritating”.
Karly Blackburn, from Northern Carolina, caused a social media storm when she revealed on LinkedIn that she’d sent her resume to Nike on a cake.
“Yes, an edible resume on top of a cake,” she wrote online.
Nike was having a celebration for its Just Do It day at the company’s World Headquarters in Oregon and Ms Blackburn explained that she hoped the party favour would win their favour.
“I had done some research and found a division within Nike called Valiant Labs which is a startup incubator for Nike ideas,” she said.
“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.”
‘I will do whatever it takes’
Following some words of inspiration from a former colleague to “show up in a creative way,” Ms Blackburn, who'd been laid off by her corporate job, kicked off her plan.
After arranging for a cake to be made at a local grocery store, she had it delivered via Instacart, a delivery and pick-up service in the US.
But the best part of the story, according to Ms Blackburn, was Denise Baldwin, the Instacart driver.
“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,” she wrote on LinkedIn.
After wrangling an expansive Nike campus, with a sleeping child in one arm and a cake in the other, Ms Baldwin made her special delivery.
“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’.”
Internet divided over CV treat
Ms Blackburn’s post has since received almost 132,000 reactions and more than 5,000 comments, and has been shared close to 4,000 times.
But among those who’ve responded, opinion remains divided.
In the first camp, LinkedIn users have been bowled over by Ms Blackburn’s tenacity to “think outside the box”, and have praised her for “inspiring others” and “making people smile.”
“This is genius, [what] a way to get creative!” one person wrote. “Food is the best way into anyone’s heart or mind!”
“Love this,” said another. “If I’d received this or just saw this post and had a role for you, I’d be calling immediately.”
“In a world of digital interaction, this is amazing,” someone else added. “I love the level of creativity. It’s well planned, unique and stands out above the rest.”
However, not all users agreed.
“That cake just created more work for the recruiter who now has to manually put all of the information that is on the resume into the recruiting database,” one woman wrote. “While the gesture is well-intentioned, it’s completely selfish.”
“I am not sure how great it was for impressing people about your professional skills,” another said. “I think it was irritating and a cheap way to attract such attention to yourself.”
“This is a terrible gimmick,” someone else added. “The cake was almost certainly thrown away unceremoniously because people don’t just accept food from strangers at a large corporation.”
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A sweet ending for Ms Blackburn
It’s since been revealed that the hungry job seeker’s efforts have paid off.
Among the comments on Ms Blackburn's post was a message from James Judson, a Global Talent Leader at Nike.
After being tagged in the thread, he confirmed that a team from Nike had already been in touch with Ms Blackburn.
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