CPPS doubts firm's claims

The Career Planning and Placement Service recently sent out a warning to Wharton undergraduates: Beware of the Wall Street Placement Company. CPPS Director Patricia Rose cautioned that her office has received calls from firms who are not hiring, asking if CPPS had given the companies' names to Wharton School of Business students. "These firms do not have jobs, and in some cases people who do not do hiring have been receiving as many as a dozen resumes a day from Penn students," Rose wrote in an electronic announcement sent through the Wharton School Undergraduate Division's Office of the Vice Dean. The Wall Street Placement Company, run by 1994 Wharton graduate Arjun Kochhar, is aimed at helping students apply for internships or jobs. Interested students send a cover letter to the placement company, and it then plugs in the prospective employer's name and other details. The completed letters are then returned to the students, who must attach their resumes to the letters. Also included in the package is a list of companies to which the resume and cover letter should be sent. But Rose said the Placement Company is a fraud. "Please be informed that you should not be paying anyone for a list of companies who allegedly have jobs," she wrote. "Students are being taken advantage of by a fellow student who runs this supposed service?" Kochhar defended the company, saying his database -- which contains the names of approximately 2,000 companies -- was updated in January. Of these, only 10 companies complained to CPPS, he said. Kochhar added that companies contacted CPPS because CPPS was mentioned in the students' cover letters, which students usually write themselves. Kochhar said he feels CPPS is publicizing these incidents as an "excuse" to destroy the Wall Street Placement Company's credibility. "Basically, they're upset about the fact that a student placement company is doing what CPPS is supposed to do," Kochhar said. But CPPS Associate Director Beverly Hamilton-Chandler said the problems with the Wall Street Placement Company are worse than Kochhar indicated. She said more than a dozen firms have complained to CPPS, and the calls have continued to pour in. "We've been receiving, every day, several more phone calls," Hamilton-Chandler said. She added that letters from the company are not being sent to the appropriate individuals, and the firms are "quite concerned." "They're very upset about it, and we're concerned about what impact that has on the students," Hamilton-Chandler said. Kochhar said he is worried that the Wall Street Placement Company's reputation is being damaged by CPPS. "Our credibility is more important to us right now than anything else," he said. "And CPPS is trying to attack exactly that." Two students who used the company expressed satisfaction with its work. Wharton freshman Javed Siddique said the company delivered what it promised. "They explain the service exactly how it is and that's how they do it," Siddique said, adding that although he did not get his summer internship using the company, he will use the addresses he was given in pursuing future internships and jobs. Siddique said he believes that if the Placement Company checks to make sure the positions exist and CPPS is not mentioned in the cover letter, then the company's services are "totally legit."

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