[Helping a Friend] Bootcamp CS grad with solid LC but zero offers - double down on grinding or pivot to AI projects?

Look, I've been lurking here forever and finally posting because my buddy is in a rough spot and I want real talk from you all. He's 27, finished a coding bootcamp 6 months ago (self-funded, no debt),

Look, I've been lurking here forever and finally posting because my buddy is in a rough spot and I want real talk from you all. He's 27, finished a coding bootcamp 6 months ago (self-funded, no debt), grinded out 250 medium LC problems, built a couple fullstack apps (MERN stack, deployed on Vercel), and has a 3.5 CS GPA from a state school he finished online while working retail. Applied to 120+ entry-level roles at mid-sized companies and startups. Crickets. Not even ghosted interviews, just total silence after ATS roulette. Tbh, market feels brutal for newbies right now, especially non-elite pedigrees. I switched into tech myself a couple years back (teaching to UX research via bootcamp) and it took me 4 months of similar nonsense before landing something. Helped him tweak resume for keywords, mock interviews, even hit up my network for referrals. Nada. He's eyeing AI stuff now - like fine-tuning models or building chatbots with LangChain - since every JD mentions it. But he's no ML whiz, just basic Python/ML electives. Honestly, is the traditional "LC + projects" path dead for juniors? Or should he keep spamming apps while side-hustling AI demos to stand out? Saw some levels.fyi data hinting entry FAANG rejects are flooding the market, dropping median new grad pay 15% yoy or whatever, but not sure if that fits his case. What would you do in his shoes? Grind more LC easies? Target smaller remote gigs? Or yeah, go AI-heavy portfolio? Poll: A) More grinding traditional path B) Pivot hard to AI/ML side projects C) Something else (comment)