avoiding inadvertent hiring discrimination

[n00bboss]

Howdy all,

I'm the development/IT manager at a small company, and I've run into a quandary that is beyond the scope of my current management skills. I came to this job from the technical side of things, hoping this may be the type of situation they cover in MBA programs.

We are hiring a couple summer interns, and out of the applicants there's one clear hire and then two basically tied for the second spot. The thing making this difficult is that one of the two candidates tied for the second spot is a very attractive young woman, and myself and the other people who did the interviews are all male.

So first off, I don't know if the fact that they are tied in everyone's view is already the result of the one candidate being attractive, and secondly how do you avoid overcompensating and effectively holding their attractiveness (or other positive but irrelevant attributes) against them? One of the other managers already hinted that we should hire the other one simply to avoid looking like pigs, which seems just as bad as hiring the attractive one because we actually are pigs.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[Steve R Jones]

It's an intern spot and they'll be gone in a few months...

If you honestly can't decide who would be the best fit, flipping a coin would do the trick. It would make you an equal opportunity employer.