Welcome back to #WeAreGreenKey, where we shine a spotlight on our powerhouse recruiting team.
We sat down with Matt Schirano, newly named Partner leading the Information Technology practice area at Green Key. As the youngest Partner in Green Key history, Matt reflected on his years at the firm and the influence Dan Katz, also Partner, has had on his journey thus far. The two elaborated on the value of mentorship in recruiting, as well as the recent trends they’ve been seeing in IT lately.
Congrats on making Partner! How has networking and building relationships helped grow Green Key?
Matt: Over the years, I’ve focused on bringing good talent to Green Key, regardless of the vertical. This has allowed me to not only grow my team, but has helped grow the firm as a whole. When others start to see how great our culture and environment is, they want to refer people as well and it becomes a spider-web effect.
Dan: Matt is a great asset to the firm. When he first started at Green Key, he was a young talent that rose to success pretty quickly. At the time, I was putting together the team on Long Island. Recruiting Matt proved that finding one person can lead to more. He was able to bring in more people on Long Island, which ultimately led to the expansion of more teams in different practice areas.
Matt has been able to find a balance between billing and the understanding of how to manage a team. There are billers and there are managers, but being able to tackle both at once is special.
How do you find the value of mentorship translates into recruiting?
Matt: Dan taught me a while ago, being a manager and becoming a mentor is not black and white. You need to learn to manage different personalities and relationships, both below and above you. Over the years, I’ve learned to understand what keeps people motivated, and then approaching that from a team perspective. We’re a fairly young team and our motivation is built on trust.
Dan: You spend so much time with your coworkers and it becomes such a big part of your life. Building these mentorship relationships help with retention and bringing in new people. In the end, people stay at a firm when they’re happy and learning from someone they trust. The mentee has to trust that the mentor is out for their best interest. Likewise, the mentor has to be able to “let go” and allow them to work without micromanagement, which Matt proved possible very early on. It comes down to a common goal of enjoying where you work and increasing productivity.
Are there any major hiring trends happening in IT right now?
Matt: Roles within the cloud space, such as Microsoft Azure and AWS, are very in-demand right now. Companies still working remotely need to move everything into the cloud. Infrastructure is the biggest trend at the moment. No matter the market, companies need IT for their business to run. It increases their abilities and keeps them mainstream.
IT is one of the only industries where things are changing on a daily basis. Think about how often your phone updates every day. A lot of our clients are asking what we’re seeing in the market. Even if we see one thing today, it could change by tomorrow.
Now that you’ve made Partner, what are your goals for 2023?
Matt: We have a great presence in the tri-state area. The goal this year is to focus on different territories nationally and help scale our existing business over the tri-state, both in direct hire and temp.
Dan: Over the last year, we’ve built out our temp practice. It would be awesome to continue to build out that area and balance that business with our perm opportunities. It’s where our clients take us, but we’re always open to new directions.
