Speaking just for myself, usually side projects are too small to really be a showcase; expecting they have something nice might not apply to OP. Then again, I also didn't make it my day job to work on these things, but still OP could just have taken it easy. Doesn't mean they're out of touch or anything. They should just apply to a place they like, and if there is something to showcase that's indeed all the better.
I’ve gotten job offers on three separate occasions off the back of side projects I was playing with between jobs, and neither was particularly impressive. The benefit of going in with a side project is that during interview you can show what you’ve been working on, and you can dig into the code. That’s not something you can typically do with things you’ve built for an employee because everything is under NDA so you can only talk in general terms.
