I work in IT and have no shortage of offers in linkedin. In hiring season it's like 3 a week. I did go to the workforce with a masters though. 5 years of education in total. Also, tbh, I'm a senior dev now (+7 years of experience) so the playing field changes a lot.
Tell your friend to search for startups that don't pay that well just to get the initial 2 years of experience, then jump up.
I don't really get the "city" sentiment since I only search for countrywide remote jobs (Spain), but country by country the experience will differ ofc. I also specialised myself really quick into a data based field which is needed since all the fucking banks want to update their 3 decade or older systems. And by the time all of them finish being updated they will need to be updated again sooooo... :)