Dad Shares Daughter's Dating Résumé Online Because She's 'Tired' of the Apps — and It Was Her Idea (Exclusive)

"We were trying to find a way to break out of the box and get to eligible men in a different way," Matt Neff explains as daughter Alex adds, "Why not try it?”

Matt Neff helped his daughter Alex get her first post-college job through his LinkedIn account — so he reasoned the same strategy should work when she's looking for love.

That's why Neff shared her dating résumé — so to speak — on his LinkedIn page last month, writing alongside it, "Dating apps don't work for many people. And if you're reading this post, and know of a young man that could be a match for Alex, I would encourage you to reach out to me to introduce them. She's brilliant and successful and tired of dating apps."

Among other highlights, the résumé teases that Alex is "seeking the right person I can laugh with," is "creative at-heart" and loves sports and antiques.

The scariest thing she's ever done? "Called off an engagement. Ask me why."

Her dad, an Indianapolis businessman, then waited for the prospects to come rolling in.

The only shock he got was the realization that people thought he had posted about his daughter without letting her know first.

“I had one fraternity brother call me a 'yenta.' I looked it up. I thought it might be Yiddish for a matchmaker, but it meant a busybody,” Neff, 69, tells PEOPLE. “It’s not like I’m trying to swoop down and insert myself into [her] social life. Well, I guess I am now.”

But, daughter Alex assures, her dad has gotten involved with her full knowledge and consent — though even her own friends didn’t comprehend that at first.

“I had a lot of friends who said, 'You will not believe what your dad just posted on LinkedIn. Have you seen it?’ I said — 'Of course, I have consented,' ” Alex Neff tells PEOPLE. “So I think a lot of people just assumed that my dad took it on himself, but this was a family decision.”

Alex wants everyone to know that not only did she know, her entire family — including mom Lee, brother Grady and his wife, Beth — all chipped in, using their social media to help secure a match. Alex and Grady came up with the dating profile.

“I was really struggling to find a job, so [my dad] did a post in 2009,” Alex Neff says about the successful job search move 15 years ago. “Here I am at 38, struggling to make connections to date. So we figured, why not try it again?”

The posts — her dad's in particular — have gotten plenty of attention. But Alex says there have been a few rocky starts.

One woman suggested her 24-year-old nephew as a possibility, and Alex's mom replied that with her daughter being 38, that might not be a great fit for either one of them.

Another mentioned a grandson who is 28 and in medical school.

“My mom was like, 'Well if they are open to that, but it feels like med school at 28 is a very different phase than 38 with a home, a dog and looking to be in a marriage and start a family,' ” Alex says. 

Matt, Alex's dad, says his original job post for her resulted in her getting an unpaid internship that turned into a marketing and public relations position with a firm in New York.

Now a senior brand manager, Alex moved back home to Indianapolis seven years ago to be closer to her family and her community. She regularly travels to Milan and New York for her work still, which Matt says may be part of the problem.

He wonders if having a successful career might intimidate some people and if dating platforms might not be weighted heavily in her favor.

“So we were trying to find a way to break out of the box and get to eligible men in a different way,” he says.

Since sharing Alex's dating résumé, her dad says he received more than 4,000 impressions from some 2,000 people on LinkedIn, with messages complimenting Alex on her beauty and accomplishments and saying they might have someone she would like to meet.

Some have even called Matt brave for reaching out on behalf of his daughter, a compliment he brushes off and says, “I don’t consider myself to be brave. I consider it to be an inefficiency in the marketplace.” (Alex quips, “Spoken like a true businessman.”)

Matt admits he was worried he would get a lot of weird emails or messages from people in other countries, but that hasn’t been the case.

He even got one response telling him about someone who works at his company that might fit the bill.

“So it’s been much closer to home. In terms of connections, I haven’t really had anybody that just came out of the blue,” he says. “But it’s still pretty early, too. You never know how long these posts live.”

The expectation bar was pretty low, says Alex.

“We thought maybe this might get me a few dates and might get me connected to new people, and that certainly has happened,” she says. “But I think the bigger takeaway we've both had is this has spoken to the power of human connection in a post-COVID world.”

“I think technology is having an unintended consequence in our society and the pandemic just magnified that impact,” Matt says. “When I was dating in the 70s, you had to meet people, you had to develop social skills. Dating platforms is a way of avoiding rejection and looking at people in a superficial way.”

While he isn’t sure other parents will be stepping into the breach as matchmakers, he does feel that there needs to be a better alternative.

Alex says she’s been on almost every dating app available and found “a lot of casual dates [but they] never convert to a serious relationship.”

“My most successful relationships have been through shared connections,” she says.

And while she wants to be clear that she could be single forever — that wouldn't disrupt her happiness and peace — “I want love for myself,” she says. “I want marriage. My life is great, but it could be enhanced.”

So since her dating résumé started circulating, how have her prospects been? A couple of dates, but nothing serious. Yet.

“Let’s just say I have hope that one of these people might be someone I could have a long-term relationship with,” Alex says. “Whether that happens remains to be seen.”