u/Emergency_Barnacle21

I've accepted a new job and am in the process of handing in my notice, I have a three month notice period and the new job are keen for me to join relatively soon as my new head of team will be going on parental leave just after I begin. To provide me a draft contract the HR team asked for a start date, and I explained it would be 3 months from when I hand in my notice, so as preliminary date I gave them three months though s from today. But they've informed me that the signed contract will only come in a few weeks time when their head of HR returns from leave and can sign the contract there end. My question is, should I go ahead and hand in my notice having received a draft contract, or do I wait for the signed copy and hand it in then?

Last year I took a 5 month sabbatical from my role, my employment at my employment remained continuous during that period, because of this I'd never really thought about mentioning it in my CV, as I'd always thought HR would name the dates of my overall employment.

A few weeks ago I applied for another role and frankly quickly updated an old CV and uploaded it quickly, since then I've made it to a second interview. During the process I've not mentioned the sabbatical because I never really saw it as relevant, but now I'm concerned that the sabbatical would come up on a reference should I be offered the role. What's the likelihood of it coming up?