Does he have an idea of what he likes/wants to work on/build? I think that really helps narrow things down. If his goal is traditional corporate industry, then hes probably going to "conform" to what's most desirable. A nodejs, react, web developer for example. Im talking about technologies really. Almost all job postings will be for some specific technology unless you have some serious experience in say network programming or distributed systems programming or some other hyper specific category that might land you into a niche field. For example game development studios have side projects that might want 10 years experience in low latency and efficient network or systems programming.