What to Bring to an Interview

This is one of those questions with a short answer that people over-complicate. You need very little, and turning up with a briefcase of material is worse than turning up with a folder and a pen.

Here is what actually earns its place.

The Essentials

Copies of your CV. Three printed copies. Interviewers frequently arrive without one, panels are often larger than you were told, and handing someone a clean copy is a small competence signal. Print the exact version you sent, not a newer one, because a mismatch creates confusion.

Photo ID and right to work documents. Many employers check these at first interview and almost all check before an offer. A passport, or a birth certificate with a document showing your National Insurance number. Check the invitation email, because if they have asked for something specific and you arrive without it, the process stalls.

A pen and a notebook. For notes, and for the questions you prepared. Taking a few notes during an interview is entirely acceptable and is often read as engagement, provided you are not writing continuously while someone is talking.

Your questions, written down. Nobody minds you glancing at a list. Everybody notices when you say you had questions but cannot remember them.

The details of where you are going. Address, floor, who to ask for, and a phone number for the day. Screenshot it, because relying on an email you cannot load in a lift with no signal is a bad plan.

Worth Having in Reserve

The job description and your application. You wrote the application weeks ago and you will not remember exactly what you claimed. Reading it in reception is the single most useful five minutes of the day.

A portfolio, if your work is visual or tangible. Designers, writers, architects, engineers, teachers and trades all benefit from something to show. Keep it short, six to eight pieces, and know which one you would show if you only had time for one.

References, printed. Rarely asked for at interview but occasionally requested on the spot, and being able to produce them immediately looks organised. Make sure you have asked those people first.

Certificates. Only if the role requires a specific qualification or the invitation asked for them. Otherwise leave them.

Practical Things People Forget

A bottle of water. Interviews make your mouth dry and being offered a drink is not guaranteed.

Something to eat if it is a long process or an assessment centre. Performance genuinely drops in the afternoon on an empty stomach.

A phone charger or battery pack, particularly if your travel tickets, ID or directions are on your phone.

An umbrella. Arriving soaked affects your first two minutes more than you would think, and those two minutes matter.

Cash or a card for the car park. A surprising number of sites still have barriers that do not take contactless.

What to Leave at Home

Everything you do not need. A large bag is awkward in a small meeting room and you may not be offered anywhere to put it.

Food and drink you are carrying in. Finish the coffee before you go in.

Unsolicited extras. Presentations they did not ask for, unrequested written proposals, and thick folders of past work all create the same impression: that you have decided what they need rather than asking.

Anyone accompanying you. If a lift is unavoidable, ask them to wait somewhere else entirely.

For a Video Interview

The list changes completely. What you need is a tested camera and microphone, a charged device on mains power, a quiet room, a plain background, decent light in front of you rather than behind, and the meeting link open before the start time.

Have your notes on paper rather than on screen, because glancing at a second monitor looks like reading. Have a phone number for the interviewer in case the connection fails, which is the single most common problem and the one people prepare for least. Our guide on succeeding in a video interview covers the setup properly.

Bringing Notes Into the Room

Bringing prepared notes is fine and normal. Reading answers from them is not.

Keep them to a single page of prompts rather than full sentences. Key achievements, the numbers you might need, your questions, and anything you must not forget to mention. Glancing down to check a figure is fine and reads as accuracy.

We have covered this in more detail in our guide on whether you can bring notes to an interview, including how panels tend to react to it.

Pack the Night Before

The reason to do this is not organisation for its own sake. It is that a scramble in the morning raises your stress level before you have left the house, and you carry that into the room.

Bag packed, clothes out, route checked, alarm set. Then the only thing you have to do on the day is the interview itself.