GLOSSARY
Terms Bariz™ uses, defined plainly
A short reference for the vocabulary that shows up throughout your assessment, report, and dashboard.
Positioning gap
The difference between how you describe your own work in the self-assessment and how the people who actually work with you describe it in their anonymous responses. A wide gap means your network can't accurately explain what you do on your behalf.
Sub-niche
Your specific specialism within a broader professional domain — one of 304 in Bariz's taxonomy. Not your job title; a more precise category of the actual work you do.
Challenge type
The type of problem you solve for the people you work with — one of the three axes Bariz measures agreement on, alongside sub-niche and audience.
Audience axis
Who you actually serve — the third of the three axes (sub-niche, challenge type, audience) a positioning assessment measures agreement on.
Chance baseline
The score you'd expect from pure random agreement, given how many real options exist for a given axis. Bariz only counts agreement above this baseline as a real signal — matching your self-description by coincidence doesn't count.
Signal strength
How far your actual score sits above the chance baseline for a given axis — the real measure of whether people genuinely recognize your positioning, not just whether they happened to guess correctly.
Referral-ready rate
The share of respondents who could accurately describe your sub-niche, challenge type, and audience all at once — the practical measure of whether someone could confidently refer you to the right opportunity.
Archetype
One of eight named patterns Bariz diagnoses by comparing your self-assessment against real respondent data — each describing a specific, recognizable way positioning breaks down.