Perhaps something like: personal blog where you try to make X small apps per year. Or personal project where you write something on your own. Perhaps getting so

Perhaps something like: personal blog where you try to make X small apps per year. Or personal project where you write something on your own. Perhaps getting some certificate, everyone knows they arent very useful, so maybe get a cheap one (scrum.org?). So if you have a candidate, who was a baker for their whole life, but in last year: started a blog where they do some coding projec(s), say "implementing tetris in language X" and then making weekly updates to that pet project, like adding score, adding AI. At the same time that candidate got some certificate in last year (everyone knows most of those certs are a scam). To be honest when you are a junior, probably the hardest step is to get that first job; perhaps you can go to some meetups and plainly say there that you are a junior and search for a job.