Career advice - FIG pigeonholed!

Hi all,

I'd like to collect any suggestion about my career progression as I have now been working for 3 years+ in banking plus growth private equity (Tier 2) and I totally feel pigeonholed where I am.

I started my IB career in FIG BB and had to leave the bank without the possibility to change team internally. I landed a job at a(n unimpressive) PE shop, same sector, with the hope to get some buyside experience and then jump ship at the first opportunity. However I couldn't foresee covid, which froze a lot of hiring, and thus I lost one additional year.

So far, my efforts to find another PE job have been fruitless, with bigger shops passing over my resume because of my "relative" seniority and other generalist midcap shops because of the T2 name and/or industry experience. Networking efforts have also been a complete waste of time, as a lot of cold-messaging was simply ignored.

In this dire situation I was considering other potential options, but these ultimately boil down to:

1) remain where I am trying to get an interview at some point - but getting even more stuck in the meantime

2) apply for an MBA and hope to get a fresh start, even though I already have a MSc

I was also thinking about applying (back) to IB, in a generalist role, but getting an interview looks harder than expected. Do you have any suggestion?