Dave Schmidt, Ph.D.

Principal Consultant

Dave Schmidt is an Industrial and Organizational Psychologist who joined DCI Consulting’s Employment & Litigation Services Division in 2019 as a Principal Consultant. Dave consults with organizations on topics such as selection, validation strategies, legal defensibility, and the appropriate use of technology and data. Dave has over 25 years of experience and expertise in test and assessment development, data quality and integrity, and research methods. This is coupled with a strong technical foundation in analytics, statistics, and psychometrics. Dave has extensive experience conducting independent expert reviews and audits of a wide range of selection tools (ranging from traditional methods to automated employment decision tools enabled by artificial intelligence/machine learning) to evaluate adherence to legal and professional standards, as well as relevant local laws. Dave recently served as a member of the Institute for Workplace Equality’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) on artificial intelligence in employment decision making (2022), and regularly writes DCI blogs related to recent laws and happenings on the use of artificial intelligence in employee selection.

Prior to DCI, Dave spent about 11 years at Development Dimensions International as their resident expert on legal issues, managing activities supporting clients defending against legal challenges. Dave helped shape DDI’s standard practices related to legal defensibility (e.g., job analysis, content validation, criterion validation, validity transportability, adverse impact analyses, disability accommodations). Dave helped build DDI’s analytics capabilities, emphasizing repeatable/scalable analytics, custom client analytics, and data quality/integrity issues. Prior to DDI, Dave spent over 11 years in consulting and product development at Aon Consulting, working on the development and implementation of testing and high-fidelity assessment solutions. Dave helped shape Aon’s standard practices in selection, validation, legal defensibility, statistical and psychometric analyses, test and assessment development, web-based product design, quality assurance, and client technical support.

Dave has served as a consultant or technical advisor on hundreds of client projects spanning a wide range of industries, job types, and job levels. Dave is an active contributor at professional conferences, providing thought leadership in his areas of expertise. Dave received his B.S. in Psychology (minor in Mathematical Sciences) from Oregon State University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Psychology (minor in Statistics) from Iowa State University.