Traditionally, professorial recruitment has been controlled by scholars themselves selecting the best qualified candidates as a new member of the academic community according to scientific criteria. Recent studies have, however, documented that recruitment has become increasingly influenced by managers and HR personnel who approach professorial recruitment as a strategic opportunity to satisfy organizational needs following a strategic organizational logic. Thus, today professorial recruitment is shaped by both an academic and an organisational logic. However, the complex interplay between these logics and how this complexity is handled remains unclear. Drawing on interviews and semi-confidential reports from professorial recruitment processes at Norwegian universities, we show that recruitment is a sequential decision-making process and that different logics dominate different phases of the process. Sequential decision-making eases tension, meaning that multiple logics can operate harmoniously if appropriately separated. However, we also document that the sequential problem-solving has altered the power balance between the logics, leading to a moderately increased reliance on organisational logic.