North Carolina woman prints her resume on a cake, has it hand-delivered to Nike

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Karly Pavlinac Blackburn has a resume that takes the cake.

Recently, the 27-year-old went viral for a LinkedIn post about her recent job application experience and the teamwork that went into it.

As Blackburn explained, with her mind set on a job at Nike, she decided to make a bold choice. A friend suggested that instead of submitting a job application the traditional way, she print her resume on top of a cake and send it to the Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. After some research, she decided to send the cake on the day she knew a party would be at the headquarters.

“I knew navigating Nike’s large campus was a feat, but combining a giant party with tons of people on top of that adds another layer of complexity to this delivery,” Blackburn explained in her post on LinkedIn, which has raked in thousands of comments.

TODAY Food reached out to Nike for additional comment but did not immediately hear back.

Blackburn, who lives in North Carolina, placed an order at Albertsons Grocery Store through Instacart. By good fortune, Denise Baldwin — a like-minded Instacart delivery driver — was the icing on top of the cake that her master plan needed.

“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,’” Blackburn wrote.

Speaking with TODAY, Blackburn explained how (despite being asked to leave the cake on a front desk) Baldwin resolved to get the cake into the right hands. The single mother to three (and with another child due in March) made her way through Nike Headquarter’s 300-acre property with the sheet cake in one hand and her 8-month-old son in the other.

She only had the name of the person Blackburn needed the delivery to reach, but neither knew the person’s exact location. According to Complex, the campus has over 75 buildings. With the help of security, Baldwin eventually zeroed in on the proper destination and got to making the final drop-off.

Baldwin told TODAY that ensuring the delivery was executed with care and attention was essential. After all, she knows what it’s like to be a woman with career ambitions. She takes pride in her work but has resolved to get into a new career.

Plus, she takes every task that she receives seriously.

“That’s just how I do my Instacart. Like every order I take, I take it as if I was putting groceries in my home or taking stuff to my spot or a family member that needs help,” she explained. “I take every order into consideration and make sure I do my best with every order. So I do have almost five stars Gold member, so I take pride in that, knowing that my customers are happy.”

After a bit of walking and searching, Baldwin got to the party and found the employer Blackburn was hoping to connect with.

“I waited, and they called him down. It took a few minutes, and then he came down,” Baldwin explained, adding that she asked if he would take a picture with the cake for confirmation. “He said to me, ‘Oh, a cake, it’s too nice for me to cut it into.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, it’s, it’s pretty awesome the way she thought of putting her resume. It’s kind of what Nike needs: thinking out of the box and initiative ... "

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