Bloor told Recruitment Society members that the recession had not created a demand for turnaround skills that a downturn normally brings. This meant that good interims who before the recession could move seamlessly from post to post now had to be good and lucky.

“There seems to be an extraordinary number of interims that were active that have not had that luck for 18 months or so. You create your luck through extensive networking. Some interims are product-led rather than market-led and so don’t understand what the market really wants.

“The recession has not created a demand for turnaround skills, which is what everyone expected. In 2009 there was the emergence of the new competitor - do nothing.”