[hnuser355]

Was it Seneca who mocked this line of thinking? If I remember right he mocked it by saying either

1) a good man is a good man and thus equal to other good men

Or

2) you proceed through so many qualifications and “but what if this guy was prettier or had nicer tone of voice than the other good man all else equal” etc until you admit that you include minute details like the exact placement of every hair follicle on some dudes head in your proposed total ordering of humanity

[throwawaymath]

I'll admit there's probably an argument against that method of evaluation, but I'm not exactly blown away by Seneca's arguments.

In particular, I'm not convinced the evaluation must extend from arguably relevant features to obviously irrelevant features. Even if I'm ultimately wrong, I can mount a defensible argument that memory is relevant to programming ability. I do not see a way to mount a defensible argument that (for example) facial features are relevant to programming ability.

[dTal]

Here's one - attractiveness is roughly correlated with intelligence, and in the general case positive traits tend to correlate. An interview is an attempt to extract the maximum amount of information about a candidate in a short space of time. Virtually any positive trait is evidence that somebody will be a better candidate. Weak evidence, yes - but if you have two otherwise completely identical candidates (a silly hypothetical) it's not illogical to choose the one with better hair follicles (a silly outcome of a silly hypothetical).

[hnuser355]

His pretty face might leave your superiors with a better impression of your group. A friend manages a software group and actually told me that one of the best things to increase chances of getting a job with her group would be to pay more attention to my appearance and smile more. Also mentioned that just being interpersonally nice was much more important than actual abilities in her organization as long as you were good enough that the owners believed you knew what you were doing and she could justify keeping you there. Etc

[matz1]

So choose the one you think it's better, for me its the prettier one. What's wrong with that? It's better than just flipping a coin.