CNN - Job of the week: "one managing director required to run the world's biggest 'lender of last resort'. The successful candidate will be an experienced policymaker with excellent diplomacy skills. Those with a 'colorful' personal life though need not apply."

You can just imagine officials at the International Monetary Fund scrambling to put the final touches to its latest job spec following the resignation of their managing director last night.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn's decision to step down to fight allegations of sexual assault has got the world's highest-profile power-brokers quickly dusting off their resumes. His departure has also sent economists into a frenzy with many drafting their own lists of who might make cut.

The reality is that we may not know for several days or even weeks who will take control of the fund's $750 billion lending capacity and its 2,500 staff. This is because the appointment of a new MD is both political and economic.

The decisions on who gets nominated and eventually chosen occur behind closed doors, first at a country level and then on an international stage.

In fact, the opaque nature of the selection process, combined with emerging markets calls for more of a say, means the IMF has now agreed to increase its transparency about how its next MD will be chosen.

In the meantime though, this is broadly speaking how it worked the last time, when Strauss-Kahn himself became MD in 2007:

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