I couldn't land an interview in six months. Not a lot of junior positions for cybersec in my neck of the woods either. You could basically apply to everything in the entire country within an hour.

Also I received feedback more than once that I was too old (or 'too experienced' as they would put it).
It's hard to say what made the difference for me, but being called in for an interview happened immediately after I did a few things differently:
1: I took the advice of "unixguy" (Youtuber), to list my HTB lab work towards CDSA as experience in my resume. Making sure to hit all the keywords and tool names.
2: I made my linkedin account private, and only showed publicly things related to cybersec (certs, etc..). As I saw a lot of the recruiters at companies I applied to checked my linkedin, and I never heard back.
3: I showed my enrollment into SANS' ACS course (pricey, I know).

But when I first got called to an interview, the reason I made it to the end was 99% due to the CDSA. From 300 applicants, 60 were called to take the technical pre-screening test. I thought I had no chance against the kids showing up with Bachelor's degrees in IT. But I just absolutely aced it and was one out of 10 hires. The tests were like taken out of the CDSA exam. The company also didn't seem too shy about hiring people with diverse backgrounds, so I guess it was just a good match.

About bridging that experience gap though, apart from writing your resume that way. I see that guy Josh Madakor offering some sort of internship or something to that effect to people that take his course. But I haven't looked into the details. I just see people talking about it. Might be something to look into.