This résumé was posted to Twitter, and then something extraordinary happened
Sometimes, one little action can be enough to spark a chain of events that can totally transform someone’s life. That’s the case with 18-year-old Aaron O’Dwyer from Runcorn in England, whose simple tweet has helped a young homeless man, Jordan Lockett, who was desperate for work.
Last Tuesday, Aaron was was in the Liverpool city center for an interview when he saw Jordan on the street. “I had an interview for Apple at the Hilton and I saw him as I was walking towards Bold Street to get something to eat,” Aaron explained to Liverpool Echo. “I saw he was of a similar age to myself.”
He was right — Jordan is only 20 years old. When Aaron went to give him some spare change, he noticed a stack of résumés by Jordan’s side.
Each résumé was handwritten on lined paper, and they were heartbreaking. “Need work, need help, seriously lost,” Jordan wrote. “I’m sick of wasting away now. I’m always being told to go to homeless [centers] but there [sic] not helping. . . this is killing my mental health.”
Jordan explained that if he had any experience to put on his résumé, he would. “I worked as a motorbike mechanic for [two] years but that was from the start of year [nine] to the end of high school . . . my boss stopped picking me up [twoish] weeks before I was supposed to [finish] and left me with no grades or experience proof.”
He ended it with just a few incredibly poignant lines. “Very fast learner and hard worker,” he wrote. “Can I afford not to be? Any chances?”
So Aaron decided to take one and help Jordan in any way he could. “I took one and went to sit down,” Aaron said. “It looked like an obvious plea for help and I thought I’d put it on Twitter and see what people’s reactions were.”
Aaron took a snapshot of the resume and uploaded it to Twitter. “Some homeless lad in town [gave] me his CV,” Aaron tweeted with the picture, “[and] I promised I would share it on here. . . do with it what you like.”
The resume resonated with people — it was retweeted almost 3,500 times. “I didn’t expect anything – I’m still getting notifications popping up on my phone,” Aaron explained to Liverpool Echo. “I thought that if I mentioned it, someone might know him or someone might offer him some help – the reaction has been amazing.”
Jordan’s plight really resonated with Aaron, whose mother was also homeless in Liverpool as a teenager. “Hopefully after this he will find a job and somewhere to live,” Aaron told Liverpool Echo last Wednesday, a day after Jordan’s resumé went viral. “I hope he [realizes] that there are people out there that do care about him.”
But later on, Aaron tweeted with an update: “Just been told that Jordan has been found and off the streets [and] he’s meeting people tomorrow about some work,” he wrote in the tweet. “Job done, nice one twitter [sic].”
As of today, The Mirror has another update: Jordan landed a job at a local bar. An unnamed businessman saw his resumé online, and offered Jordan a place to sleep and his first real paying gig in years.
“I didn’t think anyone would ever give me a chance,” Jordan told the Echo. “I’m still in shock at all the support and can’t understand it at all.”
This story makes us so, so happy. Getting a job at a young age can be such a catch-22 on its own — you need experience to get work, but you need work to get experience. But if you don’t have a home to go to, it can seem like an insurmountable obstacle. Jordan’s determination by writing down dozens of resumés and handing them out is totally inspiring, and it paid off thanks to Aaron’s kindness. Our hearts have grown three sizes.
(Images via)
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