When I started Neighbors-helping-Neighbors in River Edge Library back on January 27, 2011, it was very evident to me that working on a job search alone was not the best way to be able to be successful at it. And I learned from talking and networking with a lot of people I would see around town that there were many people that were in the same situation as me. As I got to know some of them, it was evident that these people all had very strong resumes, great work history, a solid education, and a strong desire and motivation to succeed at their Job search. It was not their fault they were not finding success.

As the economy and job market were in the most difficult position that it had ever been historically, and the number of jobs available were truly far below the people who needed them. The idea of a locally based group led by peers who were not career professionals seemed to make sense. I did talk to professionals for some guidance, and weekly meetings to create accountability was suggested buy several that I had asked for advice from.  In the first few meetings we had a small group of members who were seasoned network meeting attendees, and they helped build the weekly meeting agenda.  Each week this small group of people would  help each other with suggestions, advice, honest feedback, networking ideas, and the support of all the members. This room filled of people all in the same situation needing a job, helping each other just proved to be providing that something extra that they all seemed to need to make a difference to assist with landing a job.

The benefit of this weekly group was the very strong support each member provided to everyone in the group, and that by attending these meetings there was a strong accountability to themselves and each member who would be in attendance. We are a pay-it-forward concept which means we expect members to give of themselves their advice, open their network to all in our group. We offer all our weekly meetings for free no cost and have a few expectations of every member in return for our efforts. We need everyone to be positive not only at meetings but in their own life, as our mission is to coach and help people to land jobs. We know that one must be positive at all times when working on this process. And we ask that all members accept the concepts, format and approach to our meetings of our group and take the steps to act on all information and advice provided by the members.

We have created an amazing success rate of job landings, and this can only be done by the members owning their job search and working very hard and smart at it.  We have no interest in trying to become similar to the many other networking groups that exist as we have found our niche and we have found a niche that was not being provided. Our group is powerful as we have the accumulated knowledge and experience of all our members, and our members are very special people and highly talented and motivated. We do not do it for you, hold hands, or spoon feed our members we ask that they own their job search and this process. We are very proud of what we have accomplished in such a short time, we know that we could not have accomplished any of this were it not for our facilitators, volunteer leaders and each and every member who has accepted our concept and apply it every day. We have aggressive expansion desires as we know what we do and what the strengths of this group are, that we can help anyone who is interested and motivated.

We plan on continuing our expansion and growth but we will only expand without compromising this great process that we have started and developed.  Please read our success stories where our members tell you how we helped.

As our organization is continuing its unprecedented growth we are moving into the next phase of our development and are now a 501 C 3 non profit organization. The following people are our Board of Directors who will help continue to keep our group focused on its mission while developing relationships with stakeholders who can help us with funding and allow us to expand our services to our membership and our communities.

Board of Directors  for  Neighbors-helping-Neighbors USA, Inc.