In my experience, even having non-trivial apps won't get you anywhere. Networking is the only sure fire way to get a position where I am, and a lot of that comes down to luck in finding the right people at the right time.
I've got to admit to having something of a knee-jerk reaction to these kinds of articles, but it seems to me that the people most often decrying Javascript as ugly and horrible are the ones trying to follow OOP practices instead of learning to write more idiomatic code through composition and closures. So these articles tend to reinforce OOP to the exclusion of learning about the strengths of the language. Not everything is an object.
I find it difficult to believe that there is a problem with an ENTIRE generation rather than a problem with hiring practices at the kind of companies that complain about these things.