6 months post grad, still have no full time job and have no idea what to do

I graduated in may from a non target with a 2.9 gpa, and I feel like I have fucked up greatly. 
 

I didn’t do well in school until my senior year (3.5 average doing 2 internships and a part time job simultaneously) 

I have some good experience, management consulting internships, part of the school investment fund, lots of extracurriculars and involvement. 

I want to go into equity research, and usually I have had no problem getting interviews buy side and sell side. I have interviewed at lots of middle market firms and even BB’s but I can never really break in. Gpa has never came up, but I feel like it’s becoming too late for me to get a full time job. Postings are dying out, was talking to an analyst at a MM firm and he said that they completely stopped hiring for their research division. I have noticed that I have been getting less and less interviews and for the last month I have not been able to get a single one. 

I’ve also have interviews for IB, asset management and even private equity but I’ve never been past a first round. 

now I have not been without a job, I have been a freelance journalist for about a year writing about a specific sub sector of technology, often covering company’s quarterly earnings. Preferably I would like to cover this sub sector as a research associate and allot of analysts have liked my journalist background.
 

I feel like it is becoming too late for me to break in, I feel like it’s too late for an unpaid internship. I am trying to find a 3 month contract role to start out but even that’s tough.
 

I don’t know what to do know that hiring is slowing down. I sit for the CFA level I in 2 weeks and I’m thinking about just getting my SIE/series 63. 
 

Anyone ever been in a similar situation?