Seeking Honesty & Guidance

I have been reflecting a lot on my career path lately and where I see myself in 5 or even 10 years. To provide some background, I’ve been working in industry for about 5 years now. I did not grow up with any exposure to the stock market. I had a difficult upbringing and my parents were not well educated. When I went to college (non-target), I picked a subject that interested me (redacted for anonymity) and did not think much about what my future prospects would be. College was the greatest thing to ever happen to me. I took an introductory economics course that kickstarted an interest in markets as a whole. The summer before fall semester my junior year, I worked a full time job and took all my spare money to go open up a brokerage account when I had $2,000 to deposit. I became hooked with investing after a string of good luck investing in Apple & Microsoft. Pretty vanilla calls. I coupled this with taking as many financial elective courses as I could fit in before graduation. My major was an intensive STEM major so I didn’t have much wiggle room to go above 18 credit hours. This only equates to about 15-18 credit hours of financial coursework. That was enough to get my foot in the door at a local RIA where I figured any experience was better than no experience. Following that up, I took a job as an investment manager analyst for institutional and RIA clients where I took over as the lead of the full cap spectrum of my asset class after 6 months. I now work as a PM at a bank in their PWM division. The work is fine. They pay me above 6 figures in a LCOL city and it is low stress. I could have it far worse. I know I have little to no room to complain about my situation compared to a lot of other people in this world. I want more though. I want to do more fulfilling work. I want to spend my time actually analyzing companies. What drives their business forward? How does management run the business? What makes them successful? How shareholder friendly are they? What is the true value of this business and what can I uncover that would make this a prudent investment? When I got interested in picking stocks, I started out buying the stocks of companies who had products I liked. I’ve branched out since then and have started compiling my own research, to the extent of writing reports at times for personal records. I have enrolled in the CFA program (anyone can enroll, you have to pass exams for it to matter). I also plan on taking courses to develop my modeling capability. Technicals can’t be fibbed in this industry. That is a great equalizer for a lot of firms. Having the ability to model is something I see in nearly every research position opening. 
 

My question essentially is…how the fuck do I get my foot in the door to an equity analyst position? I can’t seem to land an interview and feel like my dream is slipping away. I don’t have kids or major obligations right now. I am open to taking less in salary to achieve what I truly want. Lacking in guidance and figured I would tap into the expertise here to gain some new perspective outside of my own. My profile is not the most attractive on paper. No direct experience. Non-target background. Beyond passing CFA examinations, how can I stand out in the crowd? How can I network? What kind of roles should I be looking for to just get myself into the room? 
 

Thank you I’m advance for reading this. Thank you even more so for any real direction any of you provide.