Woman gets 'edible resume' on top of a cake hand-delivered to a party at Nike HQ

Editor's note: This article was originally published on September 26, 2022. It has since been updated.

The award for the most impressive resume goes to Karly Pavlinac Blackburn, and not for the reasons you might think. The 27-year-old's creative job application did the rounds on social media after she posted it on LinkedIn. Blackburn was bent on getting a job at Nike despite Nike not hiring for the team she wanted. So she decided to take an extremely bold path. "A couple of weeks ago I sent my resume on a cake to Nike. Yes, an edible resume on top of a cake. Nike was having a huge celebration for JDI day (Just Do It day)," she wrote in the post, which now has more than 100,000 reactions and 5000 comments.

While she was contemplating how to make a great impression on Nike, she was advised by a friend to go as creative as possible, reports TODAY. She decided on a cake with her resume printed on it that would be delivered to the Nike headquarters where it was having its celebration for JDI day (Just Do It day). "LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick + Other Megastars were at the event," she wrote.

She found out that a local Albertsons grocery store made cakes with edible picture images on top. She kept thinking of how she could send the cake "to a party (I wasn’t invited to), to THE team I wanted it to go to, from North Carolina all the way to Beaverton, Oregon," where the Nike world headquarters is located.

“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. 

The star of this story, for Blackburn, was Denise Baldwin, the Instacart driver sent to deliver the cake. "The best part of this story is Denise Baldwin. Denise was the Instacart driver that day and I am so grateful she was," she wrote in the post.

"Denise told 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 we spoke on the phone," Blackburn wrote on the LinkedIn post.

Speaking with TODAY, Blackburn described how Baldwin made up her mind to get the cake into the appropriate hands despite being told to leave it at the front desk. With the sheet cake in one hand and her 8-month-old son in the other, the single mother of three (with a fourth on the way in March) navigated the 300-acre campus of Nike headquarters. She didn't have the exact location of the person Blackburn desired the delivery to be sent to; all she had was their name. Baldwin ultimately located the correct location with the aid of security and began making the drop-off. After finishing her mission, she headed back to her vehicle.

She continued talking to Blackburn, referring to her as an "angel on earth." Blackburn complimented Baldwin on her determination and recommended that the two of them go looking for new employment together. Since their initial conversation over the cake, Blackburn and Baldwin have become closer. Baldwin created a LinkedIn account with Blackburn's help, and as a result of the success of the cake tale, she's already getting attention.

“I’ve done multiple jobs. I love working with people and helping people. So anything that has to do with resources or, you know, hospitality staff. I like assistant work. I’ve done sales and cashier. I’ve done a lot of different jobs,” Baldwin explained. “Whether it be anything in the office or out of office. I get pleasure out of learning new things and learning new techniques of things. I’m a very fast learner.”