Likewise, I continue to find myself shocked whenever I see developers' resumes that don't list even a single project they've worked on.

It's part of a bigger problem seen here in Europe (at least for those who don't move away.) Online work profiles like Linkedin are an obsession here -- and these sites are all oriented around highlighting school and businesses associations, instead of around the list of projects one's worked on. Useless for hiring.

This illustrates the two very different approaches to the problem of getting hired:

A) If you convince school to certify you -> you will convince a company to hire you.

B) If you achieve relevant work -> a company will hire you to perform more work.