He hadn’t even planned to be involved, but when the London Olympics Opening Ceremony wowed the world on 27 July, McDonald’s UK resourcing officer Sharad Kanwar took centre stage.

Kanwar was present as a farmer on the meadow in the centre of the stadium in the early part of the ceremony, then took up position to dance around a maypole, and finally returned as part of the industrial revolution once it had been heralded by Kenneth Branagh’s Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Asked by Recruiter why he had decided to get involved, he replies: “I didn’t, it was a bit of fortune, or misfortune, whichever way you see it.” He says it was only a last-minute call from his dance aficionado fiancée, who had planned to attend with a friend, that persuaded him to come in place of the friend who was unable to attend the selection event.

He jokingly describes this initial selection event as “horrendous”, with uber-talented singers and dancers able to wrap their legs around their head, and “people running around with clipboards ticking or crossing out what they saw”.

Kanwar adds that it was “chaotic from my point of view, but the organisation and LOCOG knew what they were doing”, and that they were “quite smart and the psychology was right in the way the spoke to us”.

Moving on to the last rehearsals, where director Danny Boyle was told at the last minute that he had to cut down the length of the ceremony, Kanwar says things got stressful, but in the end “the actual day went smoothly… I still haven’t come down from it”.

Kanwar adds that he was grateful for his company’s help in allowing him to participate, saying: “I’ve got a good boss who covered me and was flexible. I got all the time off I needed and did some work from home.”

And what of Kanwar’s fiancée? She, sadly, did not make the cut.

• Karwan was one of a number of recruitment and resourcing industry professionals volunteering their time to the Olympics - for a full report, see p10 of the new edition of Recruiter, out this Friday (17 August), and available online.