Interim recruitment with The Freud Museum

Think interim recruitment is straightforward?

Interim recruitment can be challenging. The urgency to fill a role quickly often leads to compromises on quality. Engaging multiple recruiters might feel like a smart way to cover ground, but it can result in overlapping candidates, conflicting advice, and unnecessary complexity.

The process can often go something like this:

1. You quickly brief several agencies, hoping to “cover the market”
2. Recruiters rush to market, focusing on securing candidates
3. Candidates receive conflicting or duplicate messages and limited information about your needs
4. Your inbox fills with CVs, many not hitting the mark
5. Recruiters chase feedback, even though you’ve not had a chance to read them all
6. Candidates get frustrated and drop out

You lose momentum. The process becomes frustrating. Trust breaks down.

Why is recruitment so hard?

Our work with The Freud Museum is an example of how to do interim recruitment better.

The Freud Museum, the final home of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, and a valuable internationally renowned collection, was assessed by several agencies and chose to work with one.

After speaking to several agencies, they chose to work exclusively with Peridot Partners. We started with three focused 30-minute calls covering the organisation’s context, priorities and a clear picture of what success would look like in the Interim Director role.

We treated it like a full executive search — just faster.

In just 2.5 weeks, a search was completed with twenty-three candidates considered, nine assessed and presented to the client for discussion, four shortlisted and formally interviewed, and a candidate appointed to the role.

Having trusted Peridot, the Freud Museum only had to engage at key points, such as reading a limited range of highly relevant CVs and interviewing the shortlisted candidates. Their chosen candidate was able to start in good time for a handover with their predecessor.

The appointed candidate had a smooth transition and felt supported throughout. A museum trustee praised the process, which was led by David Hingley, our Head of Arts, Heritage, and Culture.