Great job on navigating the boot-camper job hunting rollercoaster!
Disagree a lil with the focus on contracting projects for newbie bootcampers though! The kind of contracting work available to bootcampers often tends to be uninspiring. They'd be much better off working on really interesting personal projects and like you say, really focussing in on a niche.
Contracting work can be useful once they've built up a menagerie of unique projects.
That said, this is def a must read for newbie bootcampers! :)