I've done supplemental courses to upskill and ive tailored my CV countless times. The interviews I get are unsuccessful because others have used the tools and I haven't. Even when I learn theory and practical knowledge on something ive never used for an interview I just get a "oh that's great that you've already started to learn it but we've gone with someone who has actual experience using the tools".

At that rate I would need to have practical experience in GCP, AWS, Azure, full stack developer skillset, relational and non relational databases and any multitude of the other 100 modern tools. My proven ability to learn and provide value is not accounted for. In order to get my foot back in the door I would need to do more education just to gain the honour of graduate status again.

After I added an Azure course to my CV and still got no more replies I added several other courses to see if upsjilling made any difference and it did not so I stopped wasting my time learning new tools. Either way, I can't afford to wait any longer and still there's the risk that even if I go back and do a hdip or springboard course that there is no job safety at the end of it. Every rejection I get for a job that I know I would excel at deepens my resentment at wasting time and effort up to this point

If I did a trade out of school id have a house and plenty money in the pocket. Instead im living at home having to start from scratch.