Job seekers, be warned: the toxic manager you deliberately left off your reference list might already be on the phone with your future boss. The CEO of the $4.8 billion software company, Netskope, has revealed he doesn’t just call the names candidates hand over—he also tracks down the ones they left off, to find out what they’re really like.
“We do a heck of a lot of background checks and references, and a lot of those references are literally just on cultural fit,” Netskope chief Sanjay Beri exclusively told Fortune. “So we will try to find people they know, maybe the references they didn’t give.”
It means (for Netskope applicants anyway) the coworker you butt heads with two jobs ago or the manager you conveniently left off the reference list could already be on a phone call about you before you’ve even had your final interview.
“I always ask a candidate, ‘tell me your interpersonal style’ and ‘tell me what happens when you have a disagreement or conflict,” Beri said, while adding that he’ll ask the exact same question to the candidate’s former employers.
“How do they handle conflict? How do they handle when they have to do something that they disagree with? What happens in hard times?”
He wants to know how someone behaves in the trenches, as much as in the wins, since, as he put it, building a business is “a jagged line up.”
And the CEO will even ask references—listed or unlisted—how the candidate got on with peers in typically clashing departments to really test their personality.
“I would ask, so what does the marketing person think of the head of sales? There’s often like some textbook healthy conflicts—and I want to know what those people think.”
CEO says he’ll take a 9/10 on personality over a 9/10 on talent—every single time
Since launching in 2012, Netskope has scaled fast: it hit unicorn status in 2018, went public on the Nasdaq last year, and now operates in over 220 countries with more than 3,000 employees. That kind of growth means a lot of hiring, fast—and Beri said one bad apple is all it takes to unravel a culture that took years to build.
“The notion of being open, collaborative and good people matters more than anything, because people make companies—but they also destroy them,” he said, adding that it’s why personality trumps skills when hiring.
“I would choose a person who is a nine on cultural fit and a seven on domain, versus the opposite every day of the week.”
And that scrutiny doesn’t end once you’re hired, either.
“For people that are already at Netskope, we have cultural traits that we rate everybody on—like, are they open, are they collaborative, are they innovative—these things actually not only are talked about in every all hands… but at the end of the year, everybody is actually reviewed on them,” Beri said.
The top scorers on those cultural traits are recognized company-wide and put on the walls. Their rating even affects their performance review—and it’s not just their managers who judge how nice staff is to work with.
“That review also happens through their peers and could happen from the people that work for them,” Beri added.
CEOs are increasingly testing personality—they’re using coffee cups and restaurants to do it
It’s no longer enough to be a star performer with a top degree. Today, personality tests are becoming an increasingly popular part of the hiring process.
$32 billion Twilio CEO Khozema Shipchandler interviews senior candidates specifically for 45-minute dinners—he’s watching how they carry themselves off the clock while also listening for one word in particular. Say “I” too much and it signals you’re not a team player.
Meanwhile, Iñaki Ereño, CEO of the $25 billion healthcare giant Bupa, sits candidates through 6 hours of tests and even wants to see them order wine with their meal because he believes it shows they have initiative.
One CEO won’t hire anyone who salts their food before tasting it because it’s a red flag they’re impatient. Another secretly asks the server to mess up the candidate’s order mid-meal just to see how they react. Then there’s the coffee cup test, where CEOs gauge how conscientious you are by how you handle the drink you’re offered after the interview.
Even the iconic late Apple founder Steve Jobs had a “beer test” where he’d take candidates on an informal walk-and-talk to find out what they’re like off-duty. Jobs would then ask himself: “Would I have a beer with this person? Would I talk to him or her in a relaxed way while taking a walk?” If the answer was no, they weren’t hired.
And recruiters told Fortune these personality tricks actually work. “These skills are critical to success and a very good guide as to how likely someone is to have a positive impact on others or not,” Saira Demmer, CEO of SF Recruitment, said.
“Culture is such a huge driver of business success that I would applaud any leader who takes the level of care to consistently look for these kinds of details.”
