The Empty Resume: Fill & Download for Free

On a Continental flight from Guatemala to Houston on December 11, 2008, my wife and I were the only passengers. At the gate, we were greeted, “Good morning Mr. and Mrs. …, welcome to Continental Airlines, in this flight you are the only passengers”. Indeed we were! Here’s a photo of the aircraft, I believe it’s a 737.and here’s my photo of the empty gate, except for us.Three flight attendants attended to us and the pilot even came to joke with us saying, “I’m your private pilot”. After takeoff, instead of announcing on the PA that the electronic devices can be used, one flight attendant came and told us that we can use devices, adding that it would have been strange announcing on the PA when we were the only passengers. Here’s a photo of us taken before takeoff.By the way, when the passengers disembarked before our flight the plane was full. I think I know why the next flight, our flight, was empty except for us but that’s another story.EDIT: I got some requests so I had to make this edit. Why was the flight empty? Short answer: snow in Houston!On December 10th, one day before the empty flight, we were about to start an already long itinerary: Managua (Nicaragua) - Houston - Honolulu - Guam - Manila. Before we could even leave Managua, Continental informed us that the flight to Houston was cancelled due to snow in Houston. I goggled and found that indeed there was snow, albeit unusual, that day in Houston.After I explained the complicated itinerary that we had, the airline check-in staff got me on the phone to talk with a Continental staff that got us a revised booking within about two hours. She got us a business class flight to Guatemala on Taca Airlines and from there the empty flight to Houston that got us back to the original itinerary.I believe what happened is that the flights from Houston resumed and the airline had to ferry stranded passengers including a planeload of them to Guatemala. What is amazing is that the very resourceful Continental Airline staff I talked with while in Managua knew of that particular, I suppose unscheduled, flight that was going to Guatemala and that we could take to Houston on its way back.The Taca flight was a few hours after our original departure time but the Continental staff was able to get us access to the lounge (our original ticket was economy) where we stayed for the flight early the next day. When we landed in Guatemala we were paged before the passengers disembarked and just outside the plane an airline staff accompanied us to the next gate. Along the way he said “this flight is very special for you, you’ll see”.By the way , we sat on seats 1C and 1D. One big plane just for the two of us, what an experience.

As a fresh graduate / post graduate no one really expects anything other than an ‘empty resume’ as you call it so don’t worry too much. In 1974 I too had an empty resume.Nevertheless you can use this time of bachelor hood when you have more time and less responsibilities to pick up some additional skills.I had written an answer to a similar question.Gopalkrishna Vishwanath's answer to Which skills need to be developed other than your job that can earn you better?Please see if this gives you some leads.All the best.GV

I hired a guy who had spent 5 years hanging out at his parents house after finishing college. I took him on as an intern so there wasn’t so much risk to the company. He was shy and quiet, with little or no self confidence. That made it difficult to see who he was underneath. Long story made short, he was sound and hard working, got converted into full time, and has since moved on to another company where the skills he learned where I hired him vaulted him to the top of his team. I have to say, helping him get started is one of the best things I’ve done in my life, and it is immensely satisfying to see him now.So nope, it isn’t too late. But you’ll probably have to work a bit harder to get a job, and may need to start out with an internship or lower level job than you’re really qualified at. And if you know that you’re pretty good at web development, then you don’t have an empty resume. Even if you’ve just been a hobbyist, you’ve got experience and you should be sure to sell yourself that way.[P.S. I think I was 28 years old when I got my first job in software, so age isn’t an issue.]