Residents Support One Another Through Job Hunt

In a tough economy with local residents still struggling to find work, a growing support group has begun at the in January and since then five members have found jobs.

Led by John Fugazzie, the group, has grown from a small group to approximately 24 residents that attend on a regular basis.

"The group is heavily River Edge skewed with many of its members either living in River Edge or formerly of River Edge," Fugazzie said. "Every week we have new members who are out of work, working with reduced hours or own a small business. In the 16 weeks we've been meeting, five members including myself have found jobs through the groups efforts and increased networking."

The first member who found a job was a young woman who was working in New York and had a daughter with Autism that required her to leave work frequently.  The group members helped give her feedback on her resume, and she found a job with a local bank not far from her home in New Milford. 

The second person who found a job was a woman who worked for Dow Jones for 23 years as a financial editor. She attended several meetings and a group member suggested that she take microsoft word classes at Bergen Community college which she signed up for right away, about four weeks later she found another job and had to do an online editing test, which she said, had she not gotten the suggestion to take the course by a fellow member she would not have been able to pass it. 

Fugazzie found a job three weeks ago after one member suggested being more active on Linkedin.com, a professional networking web site, as that has become the place to get exposure to contacts and opportunities. Following a series of events as a result of getting more active with Linkedin, Fugazzie was hired.

Just in the last two weeks two other members both landed new jobs. When they first started attending group meetings there were depressed and felt like they should give up looking for a job as they were not getting anywhere with their job searches.

Neighbors Helping Neighbors meets every Thursday in the Library meeting room from 7 to 8:30pm. Anyone interested in more information about the group can contact Fugazzie at 201-262-0103 or email johnrfugazzie@aol.com.