When to resign after job offer

[DatingDickheads]

I received a job offer with a draft contract today. I plan to accept tomorrow. Do I wait until I receive the signed contract or am I safe to hand my notice in tomorrow. I need my notice period to start ASAP.

This is new to me, thanks in advance!

In my sector we talk about 'conditional' offers (when you are offered the job but before references and other checks are done) and 'full' or unconditional offers when we confirm the checks are fine and agree a start date with the candidate. We don't really bother with signing contracts /statements of terms and conditions any more but any discussions or negotiations should usually happen before the full offer stage so the candidate confirms they are happy with the terms and salary etc before we issue a full offer - your industry/company may have different terminology for all this but if the reason the contract they've sent you is draft or unsigned is that they need to do further checks and/or there are important outstanding matters to negotiate in the terms and conditions I'd hold off on resigning for the time being. Obviously in the case of the former if any problems crop up with your references or whatever you don't want to be in the situation of having resigned old job and potentially company withdrawing or delaying the offer for new job and then being left with a gap in employment or no job at all, and for the latter you've pretty much thrown away your leverage in any negotiations if you've already resigned your old job.

In cases where I have a good relationship with my company/boss, I have informally approached them to let them know I've been offered another job as soon as I get confirmation (usually I need a reference from them anyway so they have to know!) but personally I always hold off on sending the actual resignation letter until things are 100% confirmed at new job as you just never know. Obviously this takes a week or two (longer usually in the public sector!) and sometimes there's a temptation to set the clock running on your notice period ASAP thinking nothing bad is going to happen but to me it's not worth the risk unless of course you are so sure you want to leave you'd resign anyway even with no job to go too...

I don’t do a thing until signed

I wait until Ive signed the contract