About
Dr. Dennis Selvig has been providing psychological and leadership assessment services for public safety departments throughout the Chicagoland area for more than 25 years. After completing his master’s degree in Counseling Psychology at Loyola University (Chicago), he spent the next seven years working with the Kane County Sheriff’s Department. In addition to conducting hiring assessments for the County’s Deputies, Dr. Selvig conducted inmate evaluation and cell placement recommendations, crisis intervention, officer training, medication monitoring (with a psychiatrist), and legal, familial, and collateral party consultations. According to Dr. Selvig, “Encountering the challenges posed by our inmates certainly left me feeling empathetic to what our Police Officers encounter on a daily basis out on the streets.”
While working at the Sheriff’s Department, Dr. Selvig completed his Doctor of Psychology (Psy.D.) degree at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. This Clinical Psychology program and Dr. Selvig’s internship training at the Illinois State Psychiatric Institute were accredited by the American Psychological Association. For the next 17 years, Dr. Selvig was employed with Stephen A. Laser Associates in Chicago, where he evaluated thousands of entry-level job applicants for hiring and hundreds of incumbent public safety personnel who were seeking promotion (or were referred for fitness and trauma issues).
In 2006, Dr. Selvig opened his own company, Personnel Strategies, LLC, out of offices in the Business Network Center in Northfield, Illinois. His work continues to center on pre-employment and promotional assessment, and also includes officer-involved shooting interventions, workplace adjustment counseling, and executive coaching.
Dr. Selvig’s specialty area is in career and leadership development for public safety and municipal personnel, to include department heads, managers, and supervisors. “Promotion time is the best time to focus on career development and enhancement,” so Dr. Selvig likes to turn “promotional selection” into “career development” for all public safety personnel competing for promotion. For example, he follows up promotional testing in his Assessment Centers and/or Leadership Assessments with one-to-one sessions with each candidate for professional Career Development.
Dr. Selvig has been a member of the American Psychological Association, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Illinois Fire Chiefs Association. He has taught leadership and management classes for the Illinois State Fire Marshal and the Northeast Illinois Public Safety Training Academy (NIPSTA).