While you were updating your resume, has anyone here had a large number of contacts retired, resigned or just plain don't exist anymore?

I only list former employer “company names” on my résumé. I would never include individuals’ names there, since the résumé can be passed around for who-knows-how-long and to god-knows-where. Your personal contacts and references are far too valuable to list that casually.

When someone has enough interest to contact you based on the facts you present there, then you can tell that person the contact and reference information that they need.

And it’s not at all unusual for employees to come from folded businesses. One of my good friends at my current employer lost his former job in the Enron implosion over ten years ago. We were lucky to get him as a result.

In the job application, I was required to fill out the name of my direct supervisors. It was a pretty intense application. I think teaching jobs do things differently. The automatic form REQUIRED me to fill out the personal contacts at the time of filling it out.

Okay, an application is different, since that’s going (one presumes) direct to the people in charge of reviewing and sorting them. You had said résumé in the question.

It’s still not unusual – especially if you work with a lot of older people, as I do (or you are older, as I am) – to find many of your former co-workers retired or deceased, and former employers on the economic ash heap of history.

Do you have a LinkedIn account? That’s a great way to keep abreast of all sorts of people, primarily business contacts that you may not have had a close personal relationship with, as you all go spinning through different orbits after former employers go bust.

I can’t use any of my previous employers as references because ALL those companies are now gone.

You answer the questions on the application as they are asked. Filling in the name of a defunct company is not an issue. Leaving a blank is an issue since your application is being reviewed electronically and will not be seen by a human at that point in the application process.
If you get an interview and the employer is interested, they will ask for references. They will not attempt to contact former employers unless they have a real interest in you.
So don’t agonize about it, complete the education as completely as you can, as best you can, and good luck.

SRM

A while back, I also had to complete a very crazy application that asked for three references from every place I worked in the last ten years – if someone had left, I still listed them and if a business closed, I still included it. There wasn’t anything on the form that said the business must still be open or the people still be working there.

If they like you and want to hire you, they will work with you on the background check.