Crafting a product vision in my first 100 days as Zenjob’s CPO

When I stepped into the role of Zenjob’s Chief Product Officer (CPO) in September 2022, I was thrilled at the prospect of contributing to a team that had already propelled Zenjob to a leading position in Germany’s staffing industry, particularly within the HR tech sphere. The opportunities were immense and numerous, and it was clear that our journey ahead would pivot on seizing these opportunities, focusing on delivery, and overcoming the accompanying challenges.

Zenjob: A novel disruptor in the staffing ecosystem

Zenjob’s unique value proposition lies in the way it challenges traditional staffing norms. Unlike other players in the market, Zenjob offers an unprecedented level of flexibility for businesses with short-term staffing needs. Our marketplace brings together companies with temporary vacancies and individuals — mainly students — looking for flexible work opportunities.

In essence, we’ve broken down the traditional concept of a one-year job into 365 separate shifts. This approach generates valuable data that helps fine-tune our robust shift ranking and booking algorithm. We match our workers — or Talents — to companies with a precision that traditional staffing competitors, who don’t see the end-to-end staffing and rehiring process as we do, can’t match.

For instance, consider the life of a university student who uses Zenjob. One day they could be a shop assistant at Zara, and the next day, they might find themselves assisting customers at H&M. There’s no lengthy resume or interview process involved. They simply sign up, select their shifts on the Zenjob app, and start earning.

This ability to staff a shift within a day, combined with our data-driven, precision-matching algorithm, distinguishes Zenjob in the marketplace. Not only does Zenjob provide an unparalleled, adaptive solution for businesses and flexible workers, but it also continually enhances its platform based on deep insights from behavioral and preference data from both Talents and companies.

Fostering clarity, vision, and focus

In my role as CPO, my first critical task was to instill clarity, vision, and focus within Zenjob. While Zenjob had a roadmap and certain focal areas when I joined, I noticed a discernible absence of user-centric long-term goals. This observation shaped my initial 100 days, pushing me to define strategies to reach these goals by understanding Zenjob’s core strengths and weaknesses.

Crafting an effective product vision

To impactfully shape a product vision, three essential principles must be employed.

1. User-centric future state

The cornerstone of an effective product vision is a deep-seated connection with user values and their future states. To ensure our product vision was user-centric, my early days at Zenjob were devoted to understanding our customers. As part of this, I established the product customer insights team to attain a granular understanding of the key decision-making factors influencing our company and Talents.

A real-world scenario involving a Zara store manager illuminated their pressing needs: filling all five Saturday shifts, ensuring Talents showed up and performed effectively, maintaining transparency and control throughout the staffing process, and minimizing the time and effort involved. This user-centric clarity was a driving force in formulating our product vision.

2. Cross-functional collaboration

While a product is the core, a product vision extends beyond it, encompassing the overall experience and value we provide to our customers. At Zenjob, our executive team came together to identify the values we could provide our users in the coming years. We then directed our cross-functional teams to execute based on these values.

In the case of the Zara store manager, our marketing team initiated campaigns to attract the right Talents, while our talent training and enablement teams ensured these Talents had the required skills. This cross-functional approach was instrumental in our quest to realize our product vision.

3. Measurable success metrics

A practical product vision is rooted in measurable success metrics. At Zenjob, we distilled our product vision into tangible Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to which all our cross-functional teams were held accountable.

As an example, let’s look at our company users’ values. The objective “I can get my temporary shifts staffed anytime” was translated into a success measure of 90 percent ordered shift fulfillment. Likewise, the objective “I can count on reliable Talents who show up and work OK” was represented by a success measure of more than 95 percent attendance rate and a greater than 98 percent satisfactory star rating.

Armed with these key results, we encouraged our teams to craft innovative strategies to achieve these goals. For instance, to achieve a 90 percent fulfillment rate, we could experiment with varying exposure of shifts in the Talent job feed based on the probability of fulfillment; dynamic pricing to steer Talent applications; and hyperlocal supply and demand forecasts.

Zenjob’s product vision: A confluence of principles

The unification of these principles ultimately shaped our product vision for Zenjob. At its core, our vision aims to ensure:

• A 90 percent fulfillment rate — so temporary shifts can be staffed any time.
• Greater than 95 percent attendance rate and more than 98 percent satisfactory star rating — to guarantee reliable Talents.
• Full transparency and control throughout the staffing process.
• Seamless integration with enterprise workflows — ensuring effortless usability for our customers.

Although our tactical product initiatives and strategies might evolve over time, the essence of our vision — the user values — remains fairly constant. We are unwavering in our commitment to these user values and the principles we’ve established. We are continuously iterating, adapting, and learning, with a laser focus on delivering user-centric values. Our product vision serves as a lighthouse, guiding Zenjob toward a promising future in staffing solutions.

Reflecting on the journey

Now, almost a year after joining Zenjob, as I reflect on the journey, the progress made, and the lessons learned, I’m filled with a sense of immense pride. It’s been a whirlwind of excitement, filled with learning, growth, and significant strides toward our product vision.

The teams have rallied around our shared vision, and the collective efforts have started delivering unprecedented value to our users. We’ve successfully navigated various challenges, continually aligning our product initiatives with user-centric values, while keeping our sight on our measurable objectives.

However, the journey is far from over. We remain aware that our work’s true impact will continue to unfold in the days to come as we further refine our strategies and focus on delivering on our product vision.

Together, with focus, passion, and a shared commitment to delivering exceptional user experiences, we’ve set Zenjob on a promising path. As I look toward the future, I’m confident that Zenjob’s brightest days are still ahead. The collaborative effort, the unwavering commitment to our vision, and the team’s resilience have set us up for continuous growth and success in the years to come.