Customers don't buy rationally; the 'why' behind a purchase can be more revealing than the purchase itself.
"People don't want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole" – Theodore Levitt, 1960s
Jobs to be Done (JTBD) is a theory about consumption and what drives people's decision making. The concept was fully crystallised in Clayton Christensen’s book, The Innovator’s Solution.
The Theory of JTBD
The central premise of JTBD is: Customers don't just buy a product; they “hire” them to do a job.
At a high level, it asserts three things:
- People don't simply buy/use product and services, they "hire" them to get a job done in their life;
- People encounter situations that drive and shape their need for these "jobs“; and
- People have criteria (often unconscious) to evaluate the success of a job.
Customer jobs are found to typically align to one of three levels of jobs:
- Functional – The tasks that people seek to accomplish
- Emotional – The way people want to feel in a given circumstance
- Social – How people want to be perceived by others
Jobs arise when a customer finds themselves in a situation that presents an issue or need they must solve. They may have previously addressed this same situation and are now looking for a more effective solution, in which case it's useful to think about why they are re-examining their toolset.
An Example of the Theory
Using the theory, let's apply it as a lens to a common customer purchase: headphones.
I like using headphones as an example because I know my personal job for them is quite different to that of many others. And through discussions I've found an even wider range of jobs than I previously thought.
The common job across all headphones purchases seems to be "the need to listen to audio from a phone, tablet, or laptop".
Now there may be specific functional requirements within this purchase, such as the need for Bluetooth connectivity or a maximum purchase amount. In the case of "I need to connect wirelessly to my iPhone XR for as little as possible", a customer would likely buy Anker's Bluetooth headphones from Amazon.
Moving into emotional jobs, the customer may want to experience music in a much deeper way and have a strong appreciation for the mixing and production of their favourite music. They want to feel surrounded by the audio and may use a high-res music player or vinyl system. Sony MDR-Z1R high-res headphones play directly into this job.
And for social jobs, nothing declares early-adopter more than an iPhone 11 Pro coupled with AirPods Pro. This signals both financial success and tech-forward status, depending on the observer.
We can even find social elements in the other examples:
- The “cheap and cheerful” buyer might signal anti-establishment or frugality.
- The audiophile may want to signal taste and discernment through their choice.
Another dimension is how these jobs can be served differently. For instance, the functional buyer who listens to audio on their commute might instead use a book or Facebook app – rendering headphones unnecessary.
JTBD helps distinguish the ingoing needs of a purchase and lets companies understand their competition more broadly, not just within product categories.
Studying a Customer's Jobs
The framework below shows the flow of customer thinking and the questions we should seek to answer in JTBD research.
| First thoughts | Situation/trigger | Decision | Consume/use |
|---|---|---|---|
| ⭢ | ⭢ | ⭢ | ⭢ |
| When did the customer start thinking they’d need a (new) solution? | What led them to actively seek a (new) solution? | What criteria did they use to evaluate? | Did they achieve their conscious or unconscious goal? |
| ⭢ | ⭠ | ||
| – What's the push of current situation? – Was there a pull of new solution? |
– Do they have a strong allegiance to a current habit? – What level of anxiety do they have about the new solution? |
||
The methods of a JTBD study are no different to those of traditional user research and discovery. JTBD is primarily a tool for framing and understanding the customer problem. I typically use:
- User interviews
- Field studies
- Diary studies
- Contextual enquiry
- Participatory design
Outputs of a JTBD Study
The real value of JTBD is in the outputs and understanding of your customers it provides. I use a selection of the following to analyse and communicate findings:
- User insight reports
- Personas / empathy maps
- Journey maps
- Service blueprints
- Value proposition canvas
I’m clearly an advocate for JTBD, but there are caveats:
- It’s harder to apply in B2B contexts where the buyer ≠ user and buying is more rational or by committee.
- It relies on memory — people don’t always recall motivations and decisions accurately.
Still, I’ve found JTBD especially useful during early stage product or service design. It’s also effective for anchoring strategy around enduring customer needs. Done well, it can replace or enhance personas, and inspire more user-aligned design.