Current job market for experienced consultants

Ignore the title (came from IB), but I was recently laid off from my tier-2 consulting job (think: LEK/S&/EYP/OW/Kearney) due to the current economic environment / M&A slowdown. Idk about anyone else here, but it's been INCREDIBLY hard to not only find a new job, but a new job I am genuinely excited about. No other competing consulting firms are hiring experienced professionals (and I don't want to "downgrade," ie B4/Accenture/A&M), so my options have either been corporate strategy or buyside (PE, GE, VC). Corporate strategy is super opaque imo, and I feel like buyside has gotten overly competitive given the heavy amount of recent layoffs in this industry (resulting in an oversaturation of talent) paired with the lack of job supply right now (given our economic environment, high interest rates, etc). I'm also seeing a decline in comp, despite the inflation we've been experiencing. My biggest fear is having to "settle" on something I don't want, which is a 1-2 year commitment (minimum) within itself, and I don't want to be that person that hops from job to job every couple months. I'm coming up on month 6 of unemployment; my mental health is in the gutter. Anyone else in a similar boat / observing the same things?