Sorry it didn't work out for you. I'm one of the people who's been cheerleading the "Even if you fail, it looks good on a resume" approach.
Whenever you listen to any advice, you need to view it through the filter of Buchheit's Law: "Limited life experience + overgeneralization = advice". Lots of people post about their experiences here, but nobody's experience will completely fit with your own circumstances. So you've got to examine why it worked for them and determine if those same conditions apply to you. In my case, I was applying for a job at Google in Silicon Valley, not a big company in the UK. I had previous successful programming projects, though unfortunately nothing lucrative. And I had sharp basic CS skills and did well in the interview. I'm not sure how many of these apply to your own situation.
If they don't, you have two options:
1.) Make your situation look more like the people whose advice you've been reading.
2.) Seek out advice from people closer to your own situation.
It's really valuable that you've posted your own experience for others to learn from, but there's always a danger in generalizing too much.
Whenever you listen to any advice, you need to view it through the filter of Buchheit's Law: "Limited life experience + overgeneralization = advice". Lots of people post about their experiences here, but nobody's experience will completely fit with your own circumstances. So you've got to examine why it worked for them and determine if those same conditions apply to you. In my case, I was applying for a job at Google in Silicon Valley, not a big company in the UK. I had previous successful programming projects, though unfortunately nothing lucrative. And I had sharp basic CS skills and did well in the interview. I'm not sure how many of these apply to your own situation.
If they don't, you have two options:
1.) Make your situation look more like the people whose advice you've been reading.
2.) Seek out advice from people closer to your own situation.
It's really valuable that you've posted your own experience for others to learn from, but there's always a danger in generalizing too much.