Off-cycle recruiting and waiting to recruit for PE

Hey all, with some headhunters reaching out I thought I'd ask for your advice.

I graduated from an LAC (Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore) with a degree in Econ this past May and am now full-time at a boutique (PJT, Evercore, Laz) in their M&A group. I summered at my firm but to put it bluntly, did not get a lot of hands-on technical deal experience last summer that I can speak to on my resume. My issue is that I lack technical skills and speed, made apparent when doing case studies handed down from older analysts. I'm not to the point I can do these modeling tests from rote memory while half asleep. Still need more time learning more nuanced twists in the models as well. I'm not blaming my lack of technical capabilities on my firm or my major by the way, I realize that I am noticeably slower at grabbing finance concepts than the top analysts in my class.

I've been thinking about what I want to do after banking for a while and toggled between different options. This may explain the delay in why I haven't started preparing earlier. After talking to my mentors and friends this past month, I realized I want to recruit for PE but cannot do on-cycle with the shape I am in right now. If I recruit on-cycle even within the next month or so, I would 100% bomb every interview. I realize that many of the larger funds fill up all, if not the majority, of their spots on-cycle. Some mentors have told me it is okay to wait until I'm ready and miss the boat - that there will still be great opportunities off-cycle albeit much less. However, most older analysts at my firm were finance majors and can't speak from personal experience when it comes to learning more about investing or modeling when you're already behind, especially when you're in a time crunch to prepare for your job as well as recruiting. Thought I would throw this out there to anyone who was in the same position as I am and ask for advice. I know it's impossible to feel completely prepared for on-cycle but I need to balance feeling unprepared with being honest with myself with where I stand compared to others. Thanks in advance