What Does a Good Interim Look Like? Why the Steady Hire Often Beats the Star
One PE-Backed, Professional Services firm recently hired an extremely high-potential up-and-comer for an Interim Head of FP&A role. They needed someone who knew the sector and had proven FP&A leadership experience. However, they picked the person with the pedigree education, ACA training, and annual promotions. They’re a rising star, but an unproven leader.
This individual is now managing a team that is more experienced than they are, knows systems they don’t, and possesses complex sector knowledge they don’t have. This candidate will pull through, but the learning curve is slow, and the ROI for the business will take time to materialise. Why did they do this? The CV mirrored the incumbent CFO’s early career journey.
Why do businesses get interim hiring wrong?
Most hiring managers have hired permanent staff far more often than they’ve hired an interim. So they bring the permanent playbook with them: look for ambition, look for progression, look for someone who could grow into more.
Those are sensible things to look for in someone you want for the next five years. They are the wrong things to look for when your financial controller has just resigned, and you need someone who can pick up the work on Monday.
Picture a CV that shows someone doing essentially the same job at several companies over ten years. In a permanent process, that can get read as “not very dynamic”. In an interim process, it can be the whole point. They’ve seen this before, they know where it goes wrong, you don’t need them to progress or to run the function. You need them to do the job.
What are rock stars and superstars?
I came across a useful way of describing this in Kim Scott’s book Radical Candor. Scott, a former Google executive, splits high performers into two groups:
Rock stars are very good at what they do and are on a gradual growth trajectory. They are happy in their role and keep delivering at a consistent level. They are steady as a rock.
Superstars are on a steep growth trajectory. They are high achievers but want the next challenge and tend to move through roles faster. You are part of their career journey for as long as it makes sense to them.
Two things are worth knowing about Scott’s version. Neither group is “better”: her point is that a good team needs both. And she warns against pushing steady performers onto a faster track they haven’t asked for.
She was writing about managing teams, not hiring interims. But I think the idea maps almost perfectly onto what I see in interim hiring.
When you hire permanently, you often want a bit of both. When you hire an interim, you are almost always hiring for the first: someone who will do the job reliably and well, every single time, and who you can depend on completely.
An interim also doesn’t have a “next role” at your company. Their value is entirely in the job in front of them, so the hunger for progression that makes a superstar so valuable in a permanent hire adds very little in an emergency.
What does a good interim actually look like?
Strip away the CV polish and the good ones tend to have a few things in common:
- They’ve done this before, and more than once. The most useful question you can ask is how many times they have solved this exact problem.
- They are reliable. You can hand them the work and trust it will be done properly, without needing to check.
- They’re comfortable with a finite assignment. They come in, deliver and move on, and don’t need the role to lead anywhere.
- They get up to speed fast. Because they’ve seen the problem before, they recognise it quickly and can move with less hand-holding.
We recently placed an Interim Head of Reporting, with 10 nearly identical roles on their CV across the last 15 years. There are few systems and sectors they haven’t seen. They’re unlikely to be a CFO in the future, but they don’t want to be, and the PE-Backed SaaS business we’ve placed them with doesn’t need them to be for the next 6-12 months.
Should you be suspicious of a CV that looks fragmented or “unexciting”?
Not necessarily. Experienced interims often have assignments of six to twelve months, several businesses in a short window, and gaps between roles. For a permanent hire, that pattern might raise a question. For an interim, it can simply show someone who was brought in, delivered and moved on.
The same goes for a long career doing a similar job in different businesses. It can read as “not ambitious”. It can also mean they’ve done this exact job enough times to be very good at it.
For any assignment on the CV, ask:
- Why were they hired?
- What did they personally own?
- What did they deliver, and how quickly?
- What changed as a result?
When is a superstar the right call?
I’m not saying you should never hire someone with a faster-growth profile. Where the brief is to change or build something rather than keep it running, a different profile can make sense.
One VC-Backed Technology Scaleup we recently placed with didn’t know what its future finance function would look like. We placed an extremely bright, up-and-comer Finance Manager with them. Perhaps they’re perfect long term, perhaps they’ll be extremely useful for a short while. In this case, that style of profile gave the business options.
Similarly, a PE-backed buy-and-build services business recently hired their first CFO via Cedar on an Interim basis. It was also the candidate’s first CFO role. That firm is at an early stage and needed someone who knew the sector, but if things progressed well, could also grow with the business and stay on. A superstar made sense for them, even as an interim.
The point is to make the choice deliberately, based on what the business needs right now, rather than defaulting to whoever looks the most impressive.
Hiring an interim vs hiring permanently: what changes?
| Permanent hire | Interim hire | |
|---|---|---|
| What you’re buying | Someone who can grow with the business | Someone who can solve a specific problem or cover a gap |
| What “good” looks like | Potential, progression, long-term fit | A track record of doing this job reliably, ideally repeatedly |
| The common mistake | Hiring for today’s role only | Hiring for potential when you need delivery |
The bottom line
If you’re hiring an interim, ask a different question. Instead of “who looks the most impressive?”, ask “who will deliver what we need, with the shortest learning curve?”
The person who answers that best may not look like the star of the pile. In my experience, they’re often the one who quietly gets the job done.
FAQs
What makes a good interim?
A good interim has done the same job or solved the same problem several times before, delivers reliably from day one, and is comfortable with a finite assignment.
Is a long career in similar roles a red flag for an interim?
No. For an interim assignment, it often shows the opposite: someone who has done this exact job enough times to be very good at it.
What’s the difference between hiring an interim and hiring permanently?
A permanent hire is about growth and long-term fit. An interim hire is about solving a specific problem or covering a gap, so track record and reliability matter more than potential.
Should I hire a “superstar” as an interim?
Sometimes, if the assignment is about change rather than keeping things running. For most emergency or cover situations, a steady, experienced performer is the safer choice.
Need an interim?
If you’ve had a resignation, have a gap to cover or have a deadline coming, our interim team can help you find someone who has done it before. Get in touch directly at [email protected]
