Resigning before receiving contract

katerinasol

Hi all,

I would like to know how risky it is to hand in your resignation letter before actually signing and returning your contract for a new job. I have heard some horror stories on here but I realise that people who have had their offer withdrawn are a lot more likely to come on here and post about it rather than those for whom it went swimmingly.

I currently work for a LA on a temp contract and have been offered a job at a fairly well-known company if that helps. Ideally I would like to hand my resignation in before the end of the week but probably won't get the contract until next week.

Acc72

Easy Tiger ...........

At the moment you are excited at being offered a new job, however I don't think that it is a good idea to resign from your current job until you have the offer of the new job in writing.

planning303

Get the confirmed offer first!

You could ask them to PDF you a copy of the contract via email to speed the whole thing up

katerinasol

It's through an agency and I have had the email with the offer forwarded to me (saying pay such and such, assuming she accepts, etc), which I have verbally accepted on the phone and also emailed the agency with my referee details etc.

The thing is, they want me to start on 1st February, but we're soon breaking up for Christmas and I have a sneaking suspicion my line manager won't be in until after the new year, and we don't go back to work until the 2nd of January. Although I suppose I could use flexi time to make up the day and go to the new job on the 1st of February...


Forgot to add: They have already asked if the employer can email me the contract but for some reason they would prefer to post it instead.

Sambucus_Nigra

How long have you been at the current company?

katerinasol

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

How long have you been at the current company?

Just under a year and a half, it's a temp contract though and expires in February. They're not renewing it unfortunately.

Sambucus_Nigra

katerinasol wrote: »

Just under a year and a half, it's a temp contract though and expires in February. They're not renewing it unfortunately.

What date in Feb is it expiring?

toffifee

Congratulations on the job offer!

My DH had a job offer (big multinational company), pay verbally agreed. When the contract arrived it had some terms in it that we couldn't accept as a family (e.g. no sick pay for the first two years, I'm self employed so also don't get sick pay) and after some negotiation in the end he had to walk away.

Hopefully nothing like this will happen to you but I would advise caution before you've seen the Ts and Cs in writing.

paddyrg

Well, your job ends in Feb anyway, so they'd be pretty unreasonable not to expect you to look for more work. Just honestly ask your manager if you did manage to find more work after this job, would she be supportive?

planning303

What notice period does you temp contract state you need to give? is it defo a month / 4 weeks?

katerinasol

liggins wrote: »

What notice period does you temp contract state you need to give? is it defo a month / 4 weeks?

I checked it specifically for this the other day and it is one month.

toffifee wrote: »

Congratulations on the job offer!

My DH had a job offer (big multinational company), pay verbally agreed. When the contract arrived it had some terms in it that we couldn't accept as a family (e.g. no sick pay for the first two years, I'm self employed so also don't get sick pay) and after some negotiation in the end he had to walk away.

Hopefully nothing like this will happen to you but I would advise caution before you've seen the Ts and Cs in writing.

Thanks for letting me know, I really don't want to be unemployed so I'm willing to take on pretty much anything at the moment and this looks like a standard 9 to 5 office job, plus I really want it so obviously I don't want them to get annoyed with me before I even start.

Sambucus_Nigra wrote: »

What date in Feb is it expiring?

28th.