When I was in grad school, you were sent to the front of the line when applying for tenure track positions. (If you got a paper or two into those two publications).
However, people still had to like you in the interview and job talk.
However, people still had to like you in the interview and job talk.
I am truly surprised your faculty search wasnt more fruitful, given there is hardly much more you could have done other than maybe secure a K99 grant.
Why do you suspect your cv was not top-tier competetive? I ask because yes, I am in Academia and from my experience (including being on faculty search committees) suggests you would have at least been invited to job talks.
Grad school was successful. However, my postdoc was a different story, I got a relatively prestigious fellowship at a DOE lab but my supervisor quit before I started and I tried to do my own stuff but really didn't get much support and it wasn't much fun or productive. I quit after 2 years, about 1 year ago and joined a small biotech company in the bay area. I'm pretty sure I already have too large a gap in my publications to go back, I thought about going back to academia for a bit but that would have entailed doing a 2nd postdoc but I really wasn't interested in moving some random place for 3+ years, then dealing with the whole faculty application process again and 5+ more years before eventually getting tenure.
If you don't hate writing grants maybe academia can be for you.
Good luck.