A core jobs interview establishes the progress a customer is trying to make, rather than any single moment on the purchase timeline. It maps the functional, emotional and social dimensions of the job, finds the alternatives customers weigh outside your category, and captures the language they use to describe all of it. Run across economic, user, technical and champion buyers, the divergence between roles is the finding, not noise. This guide is a pool of 25 questions across four phases; 13 are marked core, which is about what fits in a 45-minute interview.
Last updated 2026-08-03John Gusiff, Customer Centric Solutions LLCFree to use and cite
- General
- Events & Timeline
- Pushes
- Pulls
- Desires
- Avoidances
- Habits
- Anxieties
- Solutions
- Constraints
- Experiences (gain / pain)
Phase 01
Open
Ask 2 of 3 · ~5 min
Prime them to tell a real story, not give abstract opinions. The job only shows up in specifics.
-
01
Imagine that I am filming a documentary.
Documentary framing surfaces real behaviour, not what they think you want to hear.
GeneralCore -
02
Tell me the story about buying this product. What, when, how?
The purchase story contains the clearest signal of the job being hired for.
GeneralCore -
03
Share only what you are comfortable sharing.
Ensures they share the messy, real context — not a sanitised version.
GeneralOptional
Phase 02
Explore the Job
Ask 5 of 9 · ~16 min
Map the functional, emotional and social dimensions of what they were trying to get done — and establish which buyer role you are hearing it from.
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04
Were you solving a problem or improving your life?
Distinguishes functional job (fix a problem) from aspirational job (improve life).
Customer JTBDPleasure vs. PainCore -
05
Whose problem was this to solve?
Establishes which role you are actually talking to. The same job sounds different from an economic, user, technical or champion seat — and you cannot compare across roles until you have named the one in front of you.
Customer JTBDBuyer roleCore -
06
What does this product enable you to do?
Gets to the enabling outcome — what did the product make possible?
Customer JTBDNot about ProductCore -
07
How does this product/service make you feel?
The emotional job — how did they want to feel as a result?
Customer JTBDEmotionalCore -
08
How has this product/service changed how you interact with others?
The social job — how did it change their interactions or status?
Customer JTBDSocialCore -
09
Who else was affected, and how differently?
Who else the job touched, and how their version of it differed. This is where you find the roles you have not interviewed yet.
Customer JTBDBuyer roleOptional -
10
How has this product improved your life or business?
The improvement stated plainly. Capture the phrasing, not the gist — this is often the sentence that becomes the value proposition.
Customer JTBDImprovementOptional -
11
What will this product enable you to do?
Future-state vision — what would life look like with the job fully done?
DesiresNot about ProductOptional -
12
In what ways has this product made you a better person?
Aspirational dimension — were they trying to become a better version of themselves?
Customer JTBDAspirationalOptional
Phase 03
Probe Importance & Context
Ask 4 of 8 · ~15 min
Understand how critical this job is, what it costs to leave it undone, and what else customers weigh against you.
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13
Tell me more about why this was the right solution?
Whether one product was hired for multiple jobs — reveals job bundling.
Customer JTBDOne Product Many JobsCore -
14
When did you realize "it can't go on like this"?
When the job became urgent — context triggers are as important as the job itself.
Events & TimelineCore -
15
What would have happened if you had done nothing?
Cost of inaction, in their words. The economic buyer answers this in money or risk; a user answers in time or frustration. Both are useful, and the difference tells you which seat you are in.
Customer JTBDBuyer roleCore -
16
What other categories or brands did you consider? Why?
What else they considered, including outside the category. Category-level alternatives are how you find where the segment actually ends.
PullsNot just BrandCore -
17
How important was finding the best?
Reveals how motivated they were to solve the job — intensity drives purchase.
DesiresOptional -
18
Why is this benefit important to you?
Why the outcome matters — the deeper motivation beneath the surface job.
DesiresNot about BenefitsOptional -
19
What else was happening in your life around this time?
Life circumstances at the time reveal the situational context of the job.
GeneralOptional -
20
Why those specific features?
Why those specific capabilities mattered. Separates the features that carried the decision from the ones that merely appeared on the comparison sheet.
PullsMore than FeaturesOptional
Phase 04
Close
Ask 2 of 5 · ~9 min
Capture how they would describe this in their own words, then validate your synthesis of the job by playing it back.
-
21
How would you describe this to someone in your role at another company?
The language-market fit question. Write down their exact words — not a summary. How a buyer explains this to a peer in the same role is the copy you have been trying to write.
Customer JTBDLanguageCore -
22
Have you shared the buying or user experience with others?
Whether they have described it to anyone already, and how. A second, unprompted version of their own language.
Customer JTBDSocialOptional -
23
In what ways has this product helped others?
Who else benefits when the job gets done. In B2B the answer usually names the stakeholder the champion had to sell internally.
Customer JTBDAspirationalOptional -
24
Anything else you would like to share about your product or service experience?
Catch anything that hasn't surfaced yet.
ExperiencesGainPainOptional -
25
Let me playback your story. Correct me if I get it wrong.
Play back your job hypothesis — "So it sounds like you were trying to…" Correct or confirm.
GeneralCore