Career Vision and Personal Profile for Riley Thomas: Case Study

This case study delves into the personal profile and career vision of Riley Thomas, a 22-year-old with a developmental disability and visual impairment. The analysis employs various assessment tools, including values, interests, personality, learning styles (VARK), and transferable skills assessments, to gain a comprehensive understanding of Riley's strengths and potential career paths. The assessment reveals Riley's strong values of benevolence, security, and freedom, his extroverted personality, and his interest in becoming a computer support specialist. The VARK assessment highlights his aural and kinesthetic learning preferences. Based on these findings, the study identifies four suitable work environments for Riley: helping and collaborating, competitive, orderly, and innovative/artistic. Potential career options include teaching, social work, digital artistry, and editing, leveraging his communication, computer, and creative skills. The analysis emphasizes the importance of aligning Riley's values, skills, and learning preferences with his career aspirations to ensure a fulfilling and successful professional life.

Running head: PERSONAL PROFILE AND CAREER VISION FOR RILEY THOMAS
PERSONAL PROFILE AND CAREER VISION FOR RILEY THOMAS
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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PERSONAL PROFILE AND CAREER VISION FOR RILEY THOMAS
PERSONAL PROFILE:
Introduction
Riley Thomas, the 22-year old computer savvy man, has great interest in history and
loves enjoying foods of different cuisines. He also loves searching for new information and facts.
Riley’s development disability and visual impairment has not come in his way of exploring
people and making friends, taking care of and loving others. After graduating from high school,
Riley worked as weekend greeter at the Aerospace Museum after securing the volunteer position.
He then moved on to a day program agency based in Calgary and is continuing to work there. He
spends his time surfing the internet and enjoys coffee with other members working there
supported by the agency. He has a busy schedule there as there is staff shortage and he dreams of
having more time for spending his days doing things he likes the most.
Assessment tools used and justification for using these
In order to assess Riley better, four assessment tools have been used. These include
Values assessment, Interests assessment, Personality assessment, learning assessment using
VARK and Transferrable skills analysis. Values assessment helps in finding more about a person
including his or her interests and work values. This assessment tool is quite effective in
understanding Riley because personal face-to-face conversation did not help in understanding the
values held closely by him. The personality assessment test has been conducted to analyze
deeply, the kind of person Riley is and what qualities does he possess. The Interests assessment
tool was used to reveal the actual interests Riley has when it comes to personal and professional
life. VARK is the abbreviated form for Visual, Aural, Reading/writing and Kinesthetic skills,
which has been used to understand the different learning styles possessed by Riley. Then, with

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the help of the transferable skills analysis, it was possible to analyze the skills that Riley
possessed that could be utilized in other areas as well.
Conducting values assessment helped learn that Riley believed in Riley has strong
principles of benevolence, security and freedom. The test matched with the initial information
that was already available, which is, he is caring and loving. With such strong values, he could
be an asset to any organization especially for handling human resources. With the personality
test, it was found that Riley is an extrovert, a keen observer, attaches more value to emotions
than practicality. In addition, he is someone who prefers having things in orderly manner and
makes prior plans and commotion lists. Therefore, it is evident that the personality assessment
test has helped find deeper things associated with Riley. The interest assessment test revealed
that Riley is a visionary and has excellent skills when it comes to handling people. On the
professional front, he has interest in becoming a computer support specialist. This information
was not available initially from the interview conducted.
Riley scored 4 in the Visual skill, 15 in Aural, that is, hearing, 2 in reading and writing
skills and 11 in Kinesthetic skills. The high score in Kinesthetic reveal that he learns most
effectively when physical activities are conducted rather than attending a lecture or watching
practical demonstrations. The low score in visual is obvious because of the visual impairment
that Riley has. He finds it difficult to learn through patterns or maps because he has limited sight
although he sees large landmarks and shapes from closer distance. Similar is the case with
reading and writing. With a high score in aural or hearing, it is evident that Riley has exceptional
ability in learning through listening. The transferable skills analysis revealed that he has
numerous skills that include numerical (calculating), communication (talking, listening,

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PERSONAL PROFILE AND CAREER VISION FOR RILEY THOMAS
explaining, teaching), leadership (interviewing), investigating, helping others, creative and
innovative.
CAREER VISION:
After analyzing the different skills and qualities of Riley Thomas, four environments
have been identified as best suited for him to work based on the work environment types
identified by John Holland. Realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional
are the six job personality types that are best suited for different work environments (Kemboi,
Kindiki & Misigo, 2016). Based on the values and skills identified in Riley, he could be best
suited to work in environments that involve helping and collaborating, competitive
environment, orderly environment and innovative or artistic environment.
Depending on the results of the values assessment test where Riley scored the highest in
benevolence and lowest in power, it is, clear that a helping and developing others work
environment would suit him best. He could work as a teacher where the values he holds close
such as benevolence, achievement, freedom and security could be utilized. A teacher has to have
a compassion for the students and must have the capability to understand their problems and help
them. Riley has these values and hence, he is suitable for this work environment. The
transferable skills as found in the analysis also reveal that Riley has excellent communication
skills, which could be transferred into the teaching profession. Riley could also use his
experience to work in a social or collaborative environment where he could display his people
skills. As it has been mentioned earlier, he has worked as weekend greeter where he had the
responsibility to greet people. With this experience, he could work in a social environment. He
could work as a social worker because he has the compassion for people.

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PERSONAL PROFILE AND CAREER VISION FOR RILEY THOMAS
The results of the personality assessment test indicate that Riley could also work in an
artistic and creative environment. He is an extrovert and hence, gets along easily with people,
which is important when working in an artistic and creative environment. Apart from that, Riley
has great creativity skills because he observes things rather than being intuitive. The work
environment is also suited for him based on his transferable skills of being creative and
innovative. Amongst the transferable skills, Riley is very good with computers and this is an
essential skill in the increasingly technological working environment. With this skill, he could
innovate and create new things that could help him adapt to any environment especially the
artistic environment. He could become a digital artist with this skill.
Based on the learning styles as detected from conducting the VARK test, it is evident that
a competitive working environment such as marketing and management. He has the capability
to learn quickly through listening and physical activities and this could help him learn quickly.
He also has the capability to work with people, which is a vital requirement in marketing and
management as one has to manage a team or group of people, encourage and motivate them, look
after them. Riley is compassionate and has excellent people skills. Working in a competitive
environment also requires an individual to have knowledge about different cultures. Riley is very
enthusiastic in learning different cultures and finding new things. This could help him work with
people coming from different cultural backgrounds, which is important in a competitive working
environment. With an assertive personality, he could put forth his point in a calm manner during
conflicts and stand for what is right for him and for others as well. This is a vital skill to possess
especially in a competitive environment where people often are carried away. He could strike a
balance between competition and morality.

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PERSONAL PROFILE AND CAREER VISION FOR RILEY THOMAS
Riley’s preferences or interests reveal that he is a visionary, which is an excellent trait to
work in an orderly environment. An orderly environment could be found in the professions
such as clerk, accountant to editor. With the computer skills of Riley, he could work as an editor
and utilize his creative and innovative skills.

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References:
Kemboi, R. J. K., Kindiki, N., & Misigo, B. (2016). Relationship between personality types and
career choices of undergraduate students: A case of Moi University, Kenya. Journal of
Education and Practice, 7(3), 102-112.