An original Steve Jobs employment application sells at auction for well over US$200,000

Steve Jobs (1955-2011) is widely acknowledged for founding Apple, then acting as its CEO during its rise to the top of the personal electronics market. Prior to that, however, he found himself looking for work as a Reed College (in Portland, Oregon) drop-out in 1973. We know this thanks to one of the most recent sales of a memento of the iconic magnate - one which, ironically enough, might also be one of the most low-tech examples of the same out there.

It consists of a printed employment application, filled out in Steve Jobs' handwriting. Its contents appear to confirm that it was completed in the year in question, and that the applicant seemed not to be picky about the role they might get as a result.

Nevetheless, the document does offer somewhat of an insight into Jobs' ambitions and goals for the future. He affirms his skills in the application's given "computer" and "calculator" fields, even seeing fit to annotate them in order to highlight his aptitude in their technology and design.

Moreover, the application represents an important turning-point in Jobs' life: it is a piece of hard evidence of his life just prior to joining Atari, a company at which he and Steve Wozniak crossed paths. This event ultimately led to the launch of Apple in 1976.

These details may have contributed to a final price of £162,000 (~US$222,100) for the application - a single sheet of yellowing paper - at its February 2021 auction. This listing, entered in London by the firm Charterfields, includes certificates of authenticity for the artefact, if no hints as to who might have spent all that money on it.

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