“People analytics” — the assessment of whether particular workers are suitable for particular kinds of employment or performing well at their jobs — is booming like never before. Everything that can be measured about us, whether via personality tests, biometrics or the big-data trails we leave in the cloud as we go about our work, is being captured and analyzed. Proponents of “people analytics” say this new number crunching will lead to a fairer, more efficient workplace, in which employees are better suited to their jobs. They may be right. But critics worry about what happens to all the people who don’t make the grade in an algorithmically driven pure meritocracy. And they ask: In the long run, will it be healthy for society to run everything by the numbers? . . . Max Simkoff, Evolv’s co-founder and CEO, told me that his company’s big-data crunching had revealed a stream of intriguing, contrarian results. For example, “people with a criminal background stay longer...