How many people hire consultants with no experiences? What would they consult on?
Anyway, personal projects are better than nothing but they aren't a substitute for commercial experience, which is about a lot more than just coding. It comes down to not knowing what you don't know. Employed programmers deal all the time with people saying "can we do X" where X is something you'd never considered and might require some research to figure out, and the actual code is simple when you come to write it. People working alone can't help but approach from the angle of "I can do Y, so that's what I'll do".
Anyway, personal projects are better than nothing but they aren't a substitute for commercial experience, which is about a lot more than just coding. It comes down to not knowing what you don't know. Employed programmers deal all the time with people saying "can we do X" where X is something you'd never considered and might require some research to figure out, and the actual code is simple when you come to write it. People working alone can't help but approach from the angle of "I can do Y, so that's what I'll do".