I once hired career-changer as a dev. His old career was as a music studio engineer. He had a baseline level of programming knowledge, but the reason I hired him was that he was wicked smart, his brain worked in the right way, and he worked well in a team. I wasn't worried that he would need some additional training and experience to come up to speed.

He turned out to be one of my best hires.

People who pursued small projects on their own would be miles ahead of those who just say they want to do something different.

The latter often mean “I’m willing to fake pretend because I want to be employed, not because I have any passion”

Show me how you work. Show me how you think. Show me what you’ve built. Knowledge is important, but everyone can talk, not as many can do. With that said, I’m not going to ask a fish to climb a tree.