Published on: March 11, 2026 at 2:56 pm
From resume filtering to predictive candidate scoring, people analytics can streamline recruitment, but these tools only scratch the surface and may cause hiring managers and recruiters to overlook strong candidates.
Academy of Management Scholar Sekou Bermiss of the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School said that many companies “are using some sort of analytics to help weed out the large number of people applying to get to a smaller, more manageable number that is being hired.”
This makes hiring more efficient, but Bermiss believes there are two areas where people analytics falls short, putting certain candidates at a disadvantage and making it more difficult for organizations to identify the best fits.
“When it comes to measuring individuals, development, and performance feedback, those tend to be a lot less analytics-driven and a lot more driven by how a manager feels,” Bermiss said.
Calculating how well individuals will fit into organizational culture is another area where people analytics falls short.
“Culture is also another very fuzzy, squishy construct,” Bermiss said. “People know it when they experience it, but how do you measure it?
“In the last few years, there’s been a lot of advances in the ability to measure certain specific types of culture to determine whether certain cultures are spreading or whether you have people with anxiety in your organization,” he said.
Bermiss said he believes that people analytics can also be improved to address employees’ performance and well-being after the hiring and onboarding stages.
“How are you making sure they’re enjoying what they’re doing?” he said. “They’re growing. They’re developing, and they’re becoming the leaders that can maybe lead the organization there.
“I think there’s less analytics in this area, and that’s a big opportunity for analytics to be applied.”
