One woman is the first face Wayne State College students see when they are looking for their future jobs.

Carolyn Sinniger is the office assistant for the Career Services Office. She greets people as they come in, answers the phones and works on the follow-up details of some of the office events.

Sinniger also manages the registrations for the Career Fair and etiquette dinner and the payment for those events, but she does a lot of support work for other members in the office.

The best part of Sinniger’s job is getting to know the students and keeping in contact with them, whether it is in person or on Facebook.

“It’s just great to make those connections. Sometimes it makes me feel old just because I can’t believe that they have been gone from Wayne State that long and that they are already married and starting a family,” Sinniger said. “It’s still great to know these kids while they are here and continue to stay in touch with them as they proceed with their lives and their families.”

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin at Lacrosse with a degree in psychology, Sinniger has worked for Wayne State for over 18 years.

Originally from Wisconsin, she grew up near Milwaukee and met her husband in college. They moved around in Wisconsin because of his job, until he landed here as the food service director.

Sinniger started in the learning center, which is now the Holland Academic Success Center, and worked there for eight and a half years, before moving to the Career Services Office.

Sinniger and her husband have two boys, one who goes to college here and the other, a sophomore in high school.

Sinniger’s favorite event that Career Services puts on each year is the Career Fair.

“That’s when I see the most interaction between students and potential employers. I think it’s pretty gratifying to see them getting something out of it.”

Over the years, the Career Fair has suffered a few ups and downs, but is slowing making a comeback.

“Our number of employers is starting to creep back up again after it went down in the bad time of the economy,” Sinniger said. “We added a Fall Career Fair but the economy took that one out because our attendance was going down,” she said. “So we added that back just this year and it went well.”

Although the Career Fair may be Sinniger’s favorite, her close second is a great thing for education majors.

“A close second would be our education interview day. We invite school districts up here to interview our current student teachers during that given semester,” Sinniger said. “Student teachers can sign up with whatever school they want to interview with and we get a good handful from the Omaha area. A lot of our student teachers have gotten job offers from those interviews.”

The school districts always enjoy Wayne State students.

“It’s always great working with those people from schools whether they are the principals or HR person, but they are great to work with and most of them come back every year,” Sinniger said. “They always comment on how well they like our students.”

Sinniger wants students to know that they can help you throughout the entire college process.

“We can help freshmen find a part time job right away. Sophomores and juniors, we can help you get an internship. And when you get ready to graduate we can help you with that full time job search, interviewing tips, review resumes, anything related to the job search.”