What JTBD is
Jobs to Be Done starts from a simple idea: people do not buy products, they buy a solution to their task. A shopper “hires” a product to get a job done — functional (“get the present there on time”), emotional (“come across as thoughtful”) or social (“not embarrass myself in front of guests”). If the product does the job badly, it gets “fired” and something else is hired, possibly from a completely different category.
The key consequence for marketing: the job defines the competition, not the category. A spa voucher, a bouquet and a ready-made dinner delivery all compete for the same job — “make someone close to me happy tonight”.
Where the approach comes from
- Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, popularised jobs theory. The milkshake example comes from “Marketing Malpractice: The Cause and the Cure” in Harvard Business Review (2005), written with Scott Cook and Taddy Hall. The theory is set out in full in the book “Competing Against Luck” (2016).
- Tony Ulwick and his company Strategyn developed Outcome-Driven Innovation, a methodology that breaks a job down into the customer’s measurable desired outcomes.
- The job story emerged in Intercom’s product team in 2013, and Alan Klement gave it its name: “When…, I want to…, so I can…”.
JTBD and personas
| Customer persona | JTBD | |
|---|---|---|
| Answers the question | who buys | why and in what situation |
| Based on | demographics, habits, values | situation, motivation, expected outcome |
| Stability | one person, one persona | one person, many jobs |
| Best for | tone of voice, creative | assortment, storefront, scenarios |
| Example | “Anna, 34, manager” | “When a colleague’s birthday is tomorrow, I want a present delivered by the morning” |
JTBD in e-commerce
The job often shows up in behaviour and in search intent: “gift for dad under $40” is the job “a gift”, not an interest in a category.
| Job | Behavioural signals | What to show |
|---|---|---|
| A gift for a date | “gift” queries, price filter, gift wrapping | selections by budget, delivery dates |
| An urgent replacement | a single product, sorting by delivery time | nearby stock, fast delivery |
| Stocking up | repeat orders, large pack sizes | bundles, volume discounts |
| A first purchase in a category | reading guides, comparing | buying guide, bestsellers |
These jobs become the basis for behavioural segmentation and personalisation: the same visitor is choosing a gift today and buying for themselves a week later.
How to put it into practice
- Run 10–20 interviews with recent buyers: what happened before the purchase, what they tried before, what nearly stopped them.
- Write the jobs as job stories and check that each contains a situation, not just a wish.
- Find the signals for each job in your site data and build segments.
- Map your CJM by job: at which step the shopper gets lost.
- A common mistake is to replace the job with demographics (“mums aged 25–35”). A job describes a situation, not a person.