I would say that recent grads still have the same issue. In college, you write a lot of large projects; and, if you felt so inclined outside of your regular curriculum (if it was bored, or you wanted to go the next step in a project you liked, etc), you may want to do projects in your spare time. All of those large [curricular or not] activities you did can be put on your resume!

I certainly don't have the end-all-be-all resume, but alongside my college work experience, my resume contained such things as: * a neural network (NEAT) based, othello game board evaluator (done for a grad project); and, * a back-propagation based neural network project, also done as a grad project for a different class.

I had quite an obsession with NNs in school (still do).

My point is: even projects you've done in school can count as things you've done that are worth considering.

As for career switchers, if they're going to go into a higher level position, I would encourage them to show that they can do what the higher-level job is asking of them, and saying "I've done this on my own!" through projects is one way to do that.