Jobs to be done examples: what Loop is hired for

What jobs to be done is

Jobs to be done is a way of explaining why people buy. It says a customer does not buy a product, they hire it to make progress in a specific situation. The unit of analysis is the situation and the progress, not the customer's age or the product's features. When the product stops making that progress, the customer fires it.

The idea is most closely tied to Clayton Christensen, who set it out in Competing Against Luck (2016). It is useful because it changes who your competitors are. Anything a customer could hire for the same job competes with you, including doing nothing.

How a job is written down

A job has three parts, and the usual format puts them in one sentence:

When [the situation], I want to [the progress], so I can [the outcome].

The situation matters most. "People who want quiet" is a segment. "When my partner starts snoring at 1am" is a job, and it tells you when the product is bought, where it is used and what failure looks like.

Functional, emotional and social jobs

Every job has three layers, and most buyers mention all three without being asked:

• Functional: the practical task. Block the snoring.
• Emotional: how they want to feel while doing it. Calm, not anxious, not exhausted.
• Social: how they want to be seen by others. Not rude at the dinner table, not wearing something that looks medical.

Hiring and firing

A customer hires a product when the pain of the current situation plus the pull of the new option beats their habits and their worries about switching. They fire it when it stops doing the job. The firing is as informative as the hiring, and it is written down in every low review.

Worked example: what Loop Earplugs is hired for

Loop Earplugs sells reusable earplugs. Their store shows review text for five core products: Switch 2, Dream, Quiet 2, Engage 2 and Experience 2. On 27 September 2026 we read the 500 newest reviews on each, 2,500 in all, written between 15 April and 27 September 2026. Then we counted how many name a situation.

1,116 of the 2,500 name at least one. The counts below are English keyword matches, so they are a floor: reviews in German, French and other languages are mostly missed, and one review can name more than one job.

Counted on the title and text of 2,500 reviews on Loop Earplugs' own store, read 27 September 2026. Every quote is from a Loop reviewer.

What the three layers look like here

The functional job is obvious in every row. The emotional job is louder than you would expect: "saving my sanity" is not a decibel claim. The social job shows up too. 81 reviews mention how the earplugs look, with lines like "love how they match my other jewellery". For some buyers, not looking like they are wearing earplugs is part of the job.

Each job has its own product

The jobs are not spread evenly. 252 of the 470 sleep mentions sit on Dream, and 175 of the 292 concert mentions sit on Experience. 103 of the 210 sensory mentions sit on Engage. Loop's range is, in effect, one product per job.

That makes the scores worth reading job by job. Read the same day, Dream averages 3.82 across 13,933 reviews, the lowest of the five. Experience averages 4.61 across 8,777. The biggest job is attached to the weakest score.

The same jobs, asked of AI

On 24 September 2026 we put 18 buying questions to five AI engines. Eight of them are jobs typed out by a buyer. Loop was named by all five engines for sleep, concerts, "ADHD and sensory overload", "focus and work" and high-fidelity earplugs for musicians. For the sensory question, Loop's own site was the most cited source, with 10 citations.

The gaps are as telling. Loop was named by three of five engines for kids, one of five for motorcycle riding and none for swimming. Those are jobs the answers do not hire Loop for. The full run is in the note on share of AI answers and on Loop's benchmark.

Where Loop gets fired

Of the 2,500 reviews read on 24 September 2026, 282 were three stars or below. The largest themes were fit and seal (30), not enough blocking (25) and comfort and pain (23). Each is a job not done: it did not stay in, it did not block enough, it hurt. Price was 10 of 282. The voice of customer note counts them in full.

Three jobs to be done examples outside earplugs

These are hypothetical companies, written to show the format, not measured.

A meal-kit subscription. When it is 6pm on a weekday and nobody has planned dinner, I want a meal that takes 30 minutes and no decisions, so I can feel like I fed the family properly. It competes with takeaway and with pasta, not with other meal kits.

An invoicing tool for freelancers. When a client is 30 days late, I want to chase them without sounding desperate, so I can get paid and keep the client. The social job, not sounding desperate, is where most tools do nothing.

A balance bike for toddlers. When my child sees older kids cycling, I want them to ride without stabilisers, so I can skip the tears and the running behind. A buyer fires it when the child outgrows it in one summer.

How to find the jobs in a competitor's reviews

1. Collect the review text, not the stars. Take the newest few hundred per product, from their own store and from an independent site.
2. Mark every sentence that names a situation: a place, a time, a person, an event. "At night", "at the gig", "my partner", "my class".
3. Group the situations and count them. Write one job statement per group in the When, I want to, so I can format.
4. Add the emotional and social layer from the same reviews. Look for feelings and for other people.
5. Split the counts by product, to see which product is hired for which job.
6. Read the low reviews against the same jobs. Those are the firings, and the gap you can compete in.
7. Count the same way next quarter. A job that grows is a market moving.

What it cannot tell you

Reviews come from people who bought. The jobs of people who looked and went elsewhere are not in there, and those are often the ones worth winning.

Counts are only as good as the words you search for. A reviewer who writes "my husband's noise" does not match "snoring". Keyword counts are a floor and a ranking, not a market size.

And a job statement is an interpretation. The quote is evidence; the sentence around it is yours. Keep the two apart, so anyone can check one against the other.

FAQ

What is an example of a job to be done?

"When my partner snores, I want to block it without discomfort, so I can sleep through the night." It names the situation, the progress and the outcome, and nothing about the product.

What are the three types of jobs to be done?

Functional (the task), emotional (how the buyer wants to feel) and social (how they want to be seen). Most jobs have all three.

What is the difference between a job story and a user story?

A user story starts with a persona: "As a user, I want". A job story starts with a situation: "When". The situation tells you when and why the need appears.

How do you find customers' jobs to be done?

Interview recent buyers about the moment they decided to buy. For competitors you cannot interview, their public reviews are the next best source, read as situations rather than stars.