Operationalisation of soft skill attributes and determining the existing gap in novice ICT professionals

•The manuscript summarises the critical soft-skills for novice ICT professionals.•We propose six soft skill factors: Personal skill, Leadership, interpersonal skill, team skill, organisation skill, and enterprising skill.•The study establishes a substantial soft skill gap between graduates and practitioners.•We discussed the effect of respondents’ backgrounds on the perception of soft-skills.•Possible solutions to bridge the soft skills gap is proposed. The manuscript presents an analysis of the perceived importance and existing gap of soft skills for new entrants in the information technology sector. It also examines the effect of various backgrounds on the perception of soft skills. Empirical examinations are carried out through independent t-test, and MANOVA indicates substantial dissimilarity in the perception of students and practitioners. While examining the effect of the background, practitioners responded to a similarity in the perceived importance of soft skills, irrespective of gender, management level and experience. Though students showed similarity in the preparedness of soft skills regardless of the gender or medium of education up to class 12th but demonstrated substantial differences due to institute during graduation. Hence findings indicate the importance of academic institutions for the development of soft skills. The outcome also depicts that academia should take necessary action to amend the method of imparting skills for enhancing employability in students. Further, the study also sublimes essential soft skill attributes.