Throughout his long tenure as director, Robert Freeman always maintained a keen interest in attracting people to the faculty who he felt were the best available people in their respective fields. He felt that it was his responsibility to do so, and therefore did not hesitate to approach people who he thought would be exemplary additions to the Eastman faculty. These thoughts promoted, for example, an approach to pianist Murray Perahia (b.1947) in 1973, inquiring if he would be interested in a piano position at Eastman. Three years later found him soliciting the views of several people concerning soprano Eileen Farrell (1920–2002), whom he was considering for a tenured position on the voice faculty. Two years after that he had to acknowledge his failure to recruit Thomas Stevens (1938–2018), the principal trumpet of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He was equally unsuccessful in attracting oboist Joseph Robinson (b.1940) to Eastman, following Robinson's appointment as principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic. Other people whom Freeman approached or seriously considered included pianists Emanuel Ax (b.1949) and Gilbert Kalish (b.1935), and violinists Dorothy DeLay (1917–2002) and Josef Gingold (1909–1995).

Freeman also was not at all hesitant to involve himself in the hiring process when it brought him into disagreement with a faculty search committee. His commitment to having a strong faculty was his sole motivation. He later claimed, for example, that the appointment of Jan DeGaetani was not popular at Eastman because of her interest in repertoire that was not especially popular with her faculty colleagues. He also claimed that his appointments of David Burge and of the Cleveland Quartet were made without the support of search committees. When he appointed James VanDemark to be successor to Oscar Zimmerman as the school's double bass teacher, there were those who questioned the selection of such a young man, especially one without orchestral experience. But in the middle of VanDemark's third year, Freeman was proud to boast how well the appointment had succeeded.