I did something similar once: after having a few suspicious years on my resume, I took a shitty job and 1 year later started interviewing seriously. It seemed to me that the one year made a big difference (or maybe just the market changed, I will never know for certain).
The fact that someone else hired you, and you survived the probationary period, is way more costly signal than e.g. giving you a homework at a job interview.
I did something similar once: after having a few suspicious years on my resume, I took a shitty job and 1 year later started interviewing seriously. It seemed to me that the one year made a big difference (or maybe just the market changed, I will never know for certain).
The fact that someone else hired you, and you survived the probationary period, is way more costly signal than e.g. giving you a homework at a job interview.
This was my experience in a stable market, the first job makes the second one much easier to find.