Anyone else got rejected after final rounds and your career never took shape?

When I was in my 20s, I was going through a layoff and moved back home. I got to final rounds for some amazing finance jobs but I didn't perform well as I wanted. I tend to drop the ball during some interviews even though there were no technicals and they were recruiting people to just come to learn on the job back in those days. I saw people who got hired instead and their careers are all amazingly well still at the same firms and moved to high levels there. 

For me, I had to go back to grad school which I applied from a position of weakness as an unemployed person. I never got those kinds of opportunities as I did back then and fumbled around in some crap positions ever since. I got to final rounds for some other decent roles in my 30s but someone else got chosen there too. So my career has been really crappy in middle office roles and I really regret a lot of things. 

Anyone else mess up on good job opportunities that you never recovered from? 

If I had gotten one of those positions, it would've been life changing and I would've never had to go get grad degrees wasting money or waste time with other things. 

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