What do you do when you're offered a new job?

[Gumby]

this is hypothetical currently but dud you give your notice in the day you were offered a new job

Or did you wait for an official offer letter

I know in many jobs a proper contract can take several months

I guess it seems a bit risky just resigning with no written confirmation in case they change their mind - would that ever happen?! I guess if a reference wasn't good maybe?
You could be left with no job

Wait for the offer letter and contract. Check it thoroughly, then and only then, confirm your acceptance and agree a provisional start date THEN hand your notice in.

I have contracted a lot and cannot tell you the number of times the contract doesn't match with what was agreed. Three times I haven't started jobs because of this (and the employer wouldn't back down on changing the contract).

An employer worth working for will get the contract out quickly and will understand that you won't be handing your notice in before seeing it.

Really? I always thought it was 4 weeks notice from the offer date
That's really helpful thanks

A friend was recently offered a job only for the offer to be retracted 4 days later. So yes, wait for the contract.

This is really interesting to me
Because in the local government jobs I've had a contract hadn't come until I've been working for at least a couple of months!

I would never hand in my notice until my conditional offer of employment was confirmed in writing, with my contract. This means that there is that tricky stage while you wait for your current line manager's reference to be acceptable to your new employer, but that is unavoidable.

Two anecdotes to confirm why:

1. Years ago, someone I knew gave up a permanent job for what he thought was a new permanent job. Turned out to be a self-employed sales agent, didn't realise until he read the contract properly (he was a bit of an idiot, mind).

1. Once I offered someone a job in my team. In the course of taking references I caught him out in a lie, and (with HR support) withdrew the offer.

I wondered about this. I work for local government. Have been there since Jan but never had any written letter of job offer and am still waiting for a contract - apparently the "contracts" dept are now working to the end of Nov!

I wasn't working before, so didn't hand in my notice, but I would have been very reluctant to do so before at least a letter was received. Presumably people do though, or they'd never fill any jobs.

Gumby and O2B - elsewhere in public sector it works this way (honest, on second big PS employer now, one civil service, one not) - maybe just a local gov thing?

I would consider a candidate a little bit naive if they didn't wait for me to get the conditional and then, later, unconditional offer letter and contract to them in good time before quitting.

I would also always entirely respect the notice period they need to give where they are, and that it only started from when they'd got some assurance from me that they had a place in my team.

I wait for the written offer and a copy of the contract. I'd be very wary of working for a place that can't manage to send out a contract within a couple of days...shows a inability to plan and organise properly.

I'd say wait for the offer letter at least but whether or not you get a contract depends on the norm within the organisation. Issuing a contract within a couple of month after starting isn't that uncommon. This is mainly the case where the new starter paperwork is used by payroll to process the 1st salary and then passed on to HR for issuing the contract. It's not unusual in schools, colleges, local govt, some quangos, etc.

In LA, it is assumed that since you will be employer under the Green Book / NJC terms and conditions anyway the bog standard stuff will be issued when it's ready and you can find out what the t&cs are from unions, website, colleagues etc. If you object to the contract, you are expected to make your objections known as soon as you get a copy.

In the last 7 jobs I worked, I only ever received the contract prior to starting on one occasion and in my last two, I never got a written contract which is fine with me.

I would always wait for an offer letter in writing - I have never had a contract before starting a job either. References/health checks can take a little while to come through so I would in general tell your employers that you have had the offer at that point -and start on negotiating on when you are leaving - but probably would not hand in a formal letter resignation until had confirmation of references etc all ok but it would depend on circumstances - how long notice period was - relationship with current employer etc and who new employer was