Hedge Fund/PE straight out of undergrad

Current target senior (HYPSW) going straight to PE next year. I interviewed for both banking and PE and found that the PE shops tend to be way more selective in the schools that they target. The processes tend to be much more unstructured (recruiting via school listservs, no online portal), especially for the smaller groups. I know for instance BX and KKR have online portals, but even then it's quite selective.

That being said, it really depends on a lot of factors like the firm's size and whether or not they even need analysts. More and more PE firms are beginning to hire straight out of undergrad, but much of it seems to be semi-structured at the moment. The processes also tend to be more challenging, with things like modeling tests and case studies that are much more difficult to prep for. This makes it really valuable to come from a solid finance background (whether it's your major or previous internships) so you can ace these tricky interviews.

For basically every PE/HF that hires out of undergrad (except for KKR's Analyst program which is basically just a diversity thing), their goal is to promote from Analyst to Associate, since it helps them save on pretty hefty recruiting fees and also reassures them that their Associate class is solid and knows their way around the PE space. So naturally there's going to be a higher bar, and the fact that there's less training means that it's expected for you to be competent at modeling, developing investment theses, etc.