Striking out in last rounds

Posting for thoughts and keen to know other people’s experiences. Associate based in London at a BB if helpful (Citi/BofA/Barclays).

I’ve done multiple PE interviews over the last 3/4 years and did okay, e.g., made it past case study stage and second to last rounds, but didn’t have the benefit of having years of experience back then. Fast forward to now, I’ve recently been in 5 PE processes that lasted several months where I made it to the final round but never quite secured the offer. Feedback has been positive, but reason for not getting the offer centres around the other candidate having more experience and/or relevant languages, which is fair game to be honest.

This has left me wondering, at what point do I accept it might be time to look at other things that aren’t PE or accept staying on the sell-side? To reiterate, I’ve done more than these 5 processes over the years, but I’m reaching that senior associate level where convos around VP promotion are (slowly but surely) starting to crop up in conversation. I’ve also tried laterally to EBs in my industry coverage to get better deal experience, but instead of losing out to another candidate in the final round due to more experience/languages, it ends up being “you were great, but we can no longer hire as no one resigned yet and budget constraints, so we have to stop the process”. Anyone else experiencing this too?

I’m not desperate to leave my current role… but it’s starting to feel like it in some ways (as I post this with Sunday scaries) when these processes are months-long, require additional weekend work on on top of the usual weekend work, finding every excuse in the book to be off the desk for a couple of hours, and doing the typical interview prep. I’m keen to be in PE and done everything to ensure it’s the role I want to be in from where I’m currently sitting, and been intentional with all the processes I’ve been involved with in terms of strategy, fund size, and industry coverage. But running out of ideas or steam at this point, so keen to hear anyone else’s experience or advice. Cheers.