Have you noticed how many people are suddenly out of work? They blame offshoring. They blame too many H-1B visas and foreigners stealing their jobs. They blame AI. Or they just quietly admit they’ve gotten older and somehow… invisible. And when they try to get back in, they show up waving the flag of their past achievements—ten, fifteen, twenty years ago—as if anyone gives a damn.
This is my biggest pet peeve with résumés: most people over forty fill them with ancient victories. That time they built a division in 2005. That award in 2010. Nobody cares. Just like Hemingway once said about bankruptcy—it happens gradually, then suddenly—the same is true of careers. Your relevance doesn’t disappear in a single day. It trickles out slowly. Then one morning you wake up and the phone doesn’t ring anymore. And it’s not the market. It’s not bad luck. It’s you.
And that’s the trap right there — clinging to yesterday while the world moves on without you. Which is why I want to bring in a story, a film that captured this exact spiral with more honesty and bite than any career manual ever could.
One of my all-time favorites. It’s pure classic. And nothing matches a classic like autumn — the most classic season of all. Fall is endings, it’s change, it’s whether you adapt or die. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about today.
So let me tell you about this film. It was nominated for eleven Oscars. Eleven. It won three. It got nods in every acting category — which almost never happens. It’s on every ‘greatest movies of all time’ list you can find. The Library of Congress has it locked away as part of America’s official memory. And critics call it not just one of the best Hollywood movies, but the truest Hollywood movie.
It’s dark, it’s sarcastic, it’s meta before meta was even a word. It stars actors who once were stars… now playing grotesque versions of themselves.
"All right, mr DeMille, I am ready for my close-up".That closing line—that chilling moment—comes from one of cinema’s greatest tragedies.
Or is it a farce?
They weren’t even sure back in 1950 when the film came out. After an early screening, MGM boss Louis B. Mayer exploded at the director: ‘You have disgraced the industry that made and fed you. You should be tarred and feathered and run out of Hollywood!’
And the director looked at him and issued the best retort in the history of Hollywood: ‘Go shit in your hat.’
That director’s name was Billy Wilder. The movie is Sunset Boulevard — magnificent, dark, sarcastic, almost pathetic. A film of cracked faces, deranged illusions, and absolute intelligence in every scene.
The script is one of the most subtle ever written. It weaves real Hollywood into its own nightmare. Directors, actors, gossip columnists — playing themselves, but grotesque, hollowed-out versions. It’s a movie about movies, where reality and fiction blur so perfectly you can’t tell which one is more absurd.
So the story is told by a dead man. Literally — the dude is floating face-down in a swimming pool. His name is Joe Gillis, a struggling screenwriter who can’t sell a script and can’t pay his car note. Repo guys are on his tail, so he swerves into the driveway of a crumbling Hollywood mansion.
He hides the car, tries to catch his breath… and the butler lets him in. Inside, he meets the lady of the house: sunglasses on, leopard-print turban, grand entrance. She thinks he’s come to build a coffin for her dead pet chimp. Yes, chimp. Lying under a blanket, like it’s about to have a state funeral.
Norma hates on everyone including the intruder but upon learning that he’s a screenwriter she gets interested. You see, she has a come up plan. A script she wrote about Salome. And in case you skipped Sunday school, let me remind you: Salome was a girl who danced for the head of John the Baptist. A teenager.
Norma Desmond, meanwhile, is fifty. Which in Hollywood years is… basically Jurassic. Not mentioning that the scrip is appallingly trite.
But Joe, ever the hustler, offers to ‘polish’ her masterpiece. Norma loves the idea — but only if he moves in. And that’s how he goes from broke screenwriter to live-in boy toy. New wardrobe, champagne dinners, an indulging sugar mama. It’s not exactly the Writers Guild dream, but hey, repo men aren’t knocking anymore.
Now, Joe doesn’t completely give up on writing, even while living off Norma’s money and leopard-print melodrama. He sneaks out at night to work on a real script with Betty Schaefer, a young story editor who actually has talent — and yes, he falls for her.
Meanwhile, Norma ships her Salome script off to Paramount. Soon the phone rings. A studio assistant is calling. But Norma refuses to take the call — she’ll accept no less than Cecil B. DeMille himself, thank you very much. So she marches into the studio, and suddenly the old-timers recognize her. They treat her like a queen returning from exile. It’s all hugs and spotlights — until DeMille gently sidesteps her. He doesn’t want her script, but he also doesn’t want to crush the poor woman’s delusion.
And the tragic joke is: - the studio wasn’t calling about her script at all. They just wanted to rent her ridiculous vintage car. But Max — her butler, ex-husband, and full-time enabler — hides the truth. He even writes her fake fan letters to keep her floating in denial. As Joe says in voiceover, she’s ‘still waving to a parade that has long since passed her by.’
By now Joe despises himself. He could run away with Betty, who actually loves him. But he can’t. He thinks he doesn’t deserve her. And Norma threatens to expose his dirty secret — that he’s her kept man. Joe finally has enough. He throws the truth in her face: Paramount didn’t want Salome, they wanted the car. Max has been writing all those fan letters. He starts packing for Ohio, ready to disappear.
That’s when Norma snaps. "No one ever leaves a star, - she hisses, - That’s what makes one a star."
Then she pulls the trigger. Joe tumbles into the pool — exactly where the movie began.
Norma drifts further into her fantasy. The police arrive, the press arrives, the cameras arrive — and she believes it’s her big comeback. Max the butler, ever the director, calls ‘Action!’ as she descends the staircase like a queen of the dead. She thanks the imaginary audience, all those "wonderful people in the dark":
-- This is my life, it always will be. Nothing else.
Nothing else.
“Sunset Boulevard isn’t just a movie. It’s a trance. You let the images wash over you — these selfish, broken, fabulous characters — and suddenly you’re right there, sitting in the dark, watching silent reels with Gloria Swanson, as she plots her big return to the screen.
Few films are this dreamlike, this operatic. Frankly, without Sunset Boulevard we wouldn’t get Twin Peaks. We don’t get David Lynch. Our horror movies would look very, very different.
Because at its core, this film is about floating — literally, in a pool with a dead William Holden — but also in that strange Hollywood limbo between fantasy and reality. And once you’re in, it’s hard to climb out.
But we don’t watch movies just for the mood here. We watch them for the guidance too. Because Hollywood drama is essentially career coaching in drag.
And Norma Desmond’s meltdown has some very real, very practical lessons for anyone who’s ever dusted off an old résumé or wondered why the phone stopped ringing. Let’s talk about those.
Lesson 1 – Stop Selling Ancient Glory
• ❌ Don’t: Build your résumé around achievements from 10–20 years ago.
• ✅ Do: Keep 80% of your résumé focused on the last 3–5 years. The rest is footnote, like education—necessary, but not the selling point.
• Example: If you scaled a business in 2007, fine, put it in one line. But if you haven’t led a new project in 2022–2025, recruiters will see you as retired, not relevant.
Lesson 2 – Don’t Rent Your Spine
• ❌ Don’t: Take “comfort gigs” that kill your credibility. Norma feeds Joe clothes and champagne, but he stops writing anything worth a damn.
• ✅ Do: Even in survival jobs, keep a parallel project alive that shows growth. Publish, consult, learn new tools, build something.
• Example: If you’re stuck in a back-office role, but you’ve been learning AI automation on weekends, that’s what keeps you employable.
Lesson 3 – Surround Yourself With Brutal Truth
• ❌ Don’t: Collect “Max von Mayerlings”—people who write you fake fan letters to keep you happy.
• ✅ Do: Keep at least one mentor, coach, or colleague who tells you the truth about your market value.
• Example: If three interviewers tell you your stories sound dated, don’t shrug. Update your language. Drop the “back when we used Lotus Notes” examples.
Lesson 4 – Relevance Is Built Daily
• ❌ Don’t: Wait for your “big comeback script.” Norma thought Salome would restore her throne. That script never mattered.
• ✅ Do: Invest every year in a visible, current proof of value: a new certification, a fresh case study, a project people can see and measure.
• Example: Instead of saying, “I managed a $200M P&L in 2012,” say, “I cut $3M in costs using AI forecasting tools last year.”
I've been working as a Wall Street recruiter and a career coach for quarter of a century, working with the brightest, toughest people in the world. And here’s the truth: your career is your movie. There are no reruns, no lost reels, no fan letters to save you. You only get the close-ups you create.
So here’s what you do — update your story, keep building proof, stop hiding behind old wins. That’s how you stay relevant, and that’s how you not just survive but thrive.
And if this hit you, then do the simple thing: spread it around. Because the more people stop living in the past, the better we all get. Now go get your close-up
