Interview With a Data Science Recruiter

There’s been a lot of changes here at Averity, New York City’s top technical recruitment firm (in my and many other people’s humble opinion), most of which have revolved around the promotions that occurred to many of our more tenured employees. As part of this transition, we decided to conduct interviews with the leaders of our firm so the world can learn more about them and find out what makes them tick. We were fortunate to have a long-known contact of mine Mark Sullivan conduct these interviews. My interview, which originally appeared on LinkedIn, is below.

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Matt Stabile always had a lot of irons in the fire. He was a lawyer at a fast-growing firm, as well as an award-winning travel writer. But his dream was starting a company from the ground up. An unexpected meeting with Chris Allaire, CEO of Averity, made that possible.

Below, he talks about how he got into the tech recruiting space, his move into the COO spot, and where he sees Averity going from here.

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗶𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀?

Long story short, I met Chris back in 2014. I was a lawyer at the time, but I was looking to get out of law. I really wanted to be a part of the technology scene in New York. I knew it was an area that was going to be huge. It was an amazing opportunity.

I mentioned this to a friend, who said, “Oh, you should talk to my husband's recruiter. He’s thinking of starting his own tech recruiting company. Why don't you guys meet?” So Chris and I got together and had a couple of coffees.

After that, one opportunity that I had in the legal world didn't go anywhere. I had an interview and they went with somebody else. Serendipitously, Chris called me two weeks later and said, “I'm doing this. I'm starting the company. Do you want to join?” And I said, “Absolutely.”

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝘆𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗼 𝗳𝗮𝘀𝘁?

What attracted me to this job, and why I love it, is the sales aspect of it. How much you want to do and how long you want to do it comes down to you. The better you do it, the more successful you are at it. You're going to be rewarded personally, professionally, and financially.

I hated the fact that you could work your butt off in law and hopefully, at the end of the year, you might get a small promotion or a little bit of a bonus. But you never are fully rewarded for the work that you put in.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴?

When Chris and I started out at Averity, it was just the two of us in a co-working space. Chris had been doing this for about 20 years. He knew the industry, knew the space, and knew how to run a recruiting company. I didn't, but I learned very quickly from him.

Building out our network of clients, we started working with some great companies like the New York Times, Verizon, and NBCUniversal. We did extremely well the first year and got some money in the bank and decided to start growing the company from there.

Averity has done a lot of growing since then.

Fast forward to 2022, and we now have more than 20 employees in three different divisions. We're working to be more tightly focused on our individual strengths. Mine has always been on the logistics and operations side. That’s why I took on the COO role.

I’m still doing executive-level data recruiting, and that probably takes up half of my time. The other half is doing everything possible to make sure that the company is running as smoothly, effectively, and as scalable as possible. In a small organization, there are a lot of ideas that bubble up, but sometimes it's hard to implement those. The buck stops with me to make sure that those things happen.

At Averity, our growth has been steady and smart over the last few years. It's still going to be smart, but I think it's going to be a lot quicker. We just set some very aggressive goals that include essentially doubling our revenue and increasing our headcount by at least 50% this year. It's great to be a part of a fun, dynamic company where every day something new is happening.

𝗦𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝗴𝗹𝗮𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗱𝗶𝗱𝗻’𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗷𝗼𝗯 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱?

The moral of the story: I did get a call back from that legal recruiter. They had fired the person that they'd hired instead of me and asked me if I wanted to join them. I said, “Absolutely not. I'm having a great time here."

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