McCormick, Ernest J.: Fourth Recipient, SIOP Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award

With his first job upon college graduation, Ernest J. McCormick noted, “The World of Work would become my lifelong passion.” McCormick was a midwesterner from Ohio; his foray into job analysis began in 1935 with a position in New York City with the National Reemployment Service. The function of this federal agency was to assist state employment agencies with job information. Within [Page 916]the year, McCormick moved to Washington, DC, with an assignment to the U.S. Employment Service: Chief, Planning Unit, Job Analysis and Information Section, Division of Standards and Research. Job data being disparate in the 1930s with inconsistencies among job development agencies, the need for a standard classification system, particularly during the Great Depression, led to interviews with thousands of workers nationwide and ...