"This is a total non sequitur" You think it is. Then try hiring people - lots of people. You will very very quickly learn to immediately disqualify the peopl

"This is a total non sequitur" You think it is. Then try hiring people - lots of people. You will very very quickly learn to immediately disqualify the people that either can't get there on time or can't submit the resume with the required information or can't provide the references by the required date, etc. I used to be very interested and sympathetic to details and narratives and stories and "this is why I didn't send it in PDF format" or "this is why I called 5 minutes late". Now I see them as the most information-dense data that a prospective hire could possibly provide to me.