Steve Jobs' really bad job application up for auction

Steve Jobs wasn't too great selling himself on the application.
 By 
Brian Koerber
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

An original job application from late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is up for auction.

RR Auction Company has listed a job application from 1973 filled out, just a few years before Jobs founded Apple with Steve Wozniak in 1976. While Jobs' accomplishments need no mention, the handwritten job application shows he was truly awful at selling himself back in the early '70s.

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Under the prompt "Access to transportation," Jobs answered, "Possible but not probobale[sic]." Way to instill confidence in your future employer that you'll be able to make it to work on time!

On the application Jobs also spells his last name with a lowercase j, provides no phone number, and lists his address simply as "reed college" without any additional information. So, if someone actually wanted to hire Jobs, they'd probably have a difficult time even contacting him. (It's unclear where Jobs filled out the application.)

Under special abilities, Jobs wrote, "electronics tech or design engineer. digital.—from Bay near Hewitt-Packard[sic].

According to the Boston-based auction house, the application is likely to draw $50,000 or more.

The listing also provides some background info, revealing the important time in Jobs' life when he filled out the application.

Jobs enrolled at Reed College for the fall semester in 1972, but dropped out after just six months to preserve his parents’ meager funds. However, he hung around campus for a year and a half to audit creative courses, including classes on Shakespeare, dance, and calligraphy—these would help to shape his artistic worldview that influenced the innovation of the Macintosh computer. In his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, Jobs recalled: ‘If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.’ In 1974, Jobs put his technical skills to work and secured a job as a technician at Atari, heavily relying on the help of Steve Wozniak. In 1976, Jobs and Wozniak set out on their own and founded Apple, introducing the personal computer to the masses. This remarkable employment questionnaire reveals Jobs's early aspiration to work in the fledgling tech industry, which he would soon revolutionize forever.

Topics Apple

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Brian Koerber

Brian was the Culture Editor and has been working at Mashable on the web culture desk since 2014.

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