Hi dev community - I have not yet posted a #discuss type question here, so apologies in advance if this is too common of a question/too long. I know the market is saturated with coding bootcamp grads, and the 'blog market' is saturated with posts about bootcamp grads. I know it's very hard to get one of the most coveted, competitive, and high-paying jobs after taking only a 3 month course. And of course I know this is an unprecedented and horrible global pandemic economy.

All of that being said - I'm really struggling, and these problems have been around for bootcamps grads for years now. I've read a lot of blogs. I've done a ton of networking. Gotten good advice. And I generally feel like I just have to do something else major now - like get some kind of further online degree/certificate? I'm not sure, but it seems like employers see '3 month bootcamp' grad and throw the resume in the trash before it even gets to their inbox. I'm not trying to be lazy and say I'm owed anything after an objectively short time - I just don't know what else to do to show that I'm serious and that I love coding and I want to learn as much as possible. And it seems like everything I could do now to try and get more experience/demonstrate my skills - personal projects, hackathons, contributing to open source, freelancing, unpaid internships - might just be further exhausting myself with nothing tangible to show for it.

Again I am really not trying to hustle or cheat my way into something I am not qualified for. I am willing to put in the work. I also am interested in doing something like an online master's degree in computer science, truly genuinely for my own personal interest, but it seems like a risky further move into debt that may or may not even help me get a real job.

A lot of the advice for struggling junior dev job seekers right now is 'just keep pushing along!' i.e. applying, networking, etc. I am not knocking that advice - and I will certainly keep applying, working on my personal projects, doing whatever self-taught learning that I can. But I am starting to wonder if I can/should do something that is more of a major change. Thank you!