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Tampa Woman Uses Street Smarts In Job Hunt

Tribune photo by JULIE BUSCH

Katherine Maloney lined up 2 interviews while handing out 100 resumes at the corner of Humphrey Street and North Dale Mabry Highway this morning.

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By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 7, 2008

TAMPA - Fifty-four-year-old Katherine Maloney, out of work since May and fresh from a trip to the pawnshop last night to get cash to feed her dogs, took her plight to the street this morning.

At the break of dawn, she stood at the corner of Humphrey Street and North Dale Mabry Highway and handed out 100 resumes. Her face-to-face style may have paid off. About an hour after she started, she had gotten three bites.

Two potential employers scheduled interviews, and one gave her a card, telling her: "Call me."

In an economy where more people lost their jobs in September than ever before, Maloney is at the end of her rope. She is facing eviction and has already lost her car. She has gotten help from social services to help pay rent and even has tapped some of her friends to help her out.

She said she has tried putting her resume online and made countless calls and attended job fairs ad nauseam. None of it worked.

Limited by the fact she has no transportation, she said she has walked to just about every business within a mile and a half of her home near this intersection, saying she will take pretty much any job.

"I'm out here marketing myself," said the former professional dart thrower who in the mid-1980s made up to $50,000 a year and traveled the globe tossing darts. She is a former North American champ who has thrown darts at boards in Switzerland, Denmark and England. In 1985, prize money alone totaled more than $20,000, not including sponsorship money.

That was a long time ago, though, and now hard times have befallen Maloney.

But this morning's effort may have paid off. The passer-by who told her to call him, asked whether she could do administrative secretarial work. A recruiter at a law firm set up an interview for Wednesday, as did a marketing firm representative.

On her walk to the intersection she got charity copies made at a day-care center, she said. As she strolled the Dale Mabry median, a sheriff's deputy told her to stay off the main highway. Someone had summoned the deputy because they thought she was begging, she said.

So she was allowed to walk the yellow line in the middle of Humphrey Street west of Dale Mabry, handing out resumes.

Reaction, she said, was mixed.

"Some are very, very touched by it," she said. "Some won't read my sign. It's about 50-50. These are hard times. Half the people took my resume and the other half didn't have jobs themselves."

Most of her experience is in sales, although she has done all sorts of jobs: packaging darts, grooming poodles, training teams of telemarketers, taking reservations for an airline.

She remained upbeat, though, after handing out all of her resumes in an hour's time.

"This is going to work," she said. "This is what I'm good at."

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com.

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