[erikb]

Like in every skill you need to choose your heuristics carefully and like in most jobs, HR and CTOs often aren't the best. That doesn't mean the whole idea is crap.

The thing about formatting I can't answer if you are right or "most HR people" are right. The argument they bring seems as legitimate as yours: People who care about the looks of their result are more disciplined, probably faster (because they get the content and the formatting in the same time frame) and care more about working in that company. Does that sound unreasonable? Which one is right can only be told with data. And because of that I tend to support the HR guys. It's more likely (of course not 100%) they have more data and experience then you and me.

(So indirectly I also agree that work experience can be a good discriminator concerning future work quality expectations)

[sanderjd]

> It's more likely (of course not 100%) they have more data and experience than you and me.

Having data does not imply usefully analyzing it, and "experience" is nothing more than a plurality of anecdote. Without actually seeing the data, I think your best guess here should be 50/50, rather than the very biased-toward-the-high-end "more likely (of course not 100%)" that you have. Appeal to authority is especially dangerous when you are making decisions that affect your company's bottom line based on peoples' ability to format text.