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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\u2019t just call the names candidates hand over\u2014he also tracks down the ones they left off, to find out what they\u2019re really like.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do a heck of a lot of background checks and references, and a lot of those references are literally just on cultural fit,\u201d Netskope chief Sanjay Beri exclusively told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cSo we will try to find people they know, maybe the references they didn\u2019t give.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019ve even had your final interview.<\/p>\n \u201cI always ask a candidate, \u2018tell me your interpersonal style\u2019 and \u2018tell me what happens when you have a disagreement or conflict,\u201d Beri said, while adding that he\u2019ll ask the exact same question to the candidate\u2019s former employers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHow do they handle conflict? How do they handle when they have to do something that they disagree with? What happens in hard times?\u201d<\/p>\n 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 \u201ca jagged line up.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n And the CEO will even ask references\u2014listed or unlisted\u2014how the candidate got on with peers in typically clashing departments to really test their personality.<\/p>\n \u201cI would ask, so what does the marketing person think of the head of sales? There\u2019s often like some textbook healthy conflicts\u2014and I want to know what those people think.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2014and Beri said one bad apple is all it takes to unravel a culture that took years to build.<\/p>\n \u201cThe notion of being open, collaborative and good people matters more than anything, because people make companies\u2014but they also destroy them,\u201d he said, adding that it\u2019s why personality trumps skills when hiring.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI would choose a person who is a nine on cultural fit and a seven on domain, versus the opposite every day of the week.\u201d<\/p>\n And that scrutiny doesn\u2019t end once you\u2019re hired, either.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFor people that are already at Netskope, we have cultural traits that we rate everybody on\u2014like, are they open, are they collaborative, are they innovative\u2014these things actually not only are talked about in every all hands\u2026 but at the end of the year, everybody is actually reviewed on them,\u201d Beri said.<\/p>\n The top scorers on those cultural traits are recognized company-wide and put on the walls. Their rating even affects their performance review\u2014and it\u2019s not just their managers who judge how nice staff is to work with.<\/p>\n \u201cThat review also happens through their peers and could happen from the people that work for them,\u201d Beri added.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n $32 billion Twilio CEO Khozema Shipchandler interviews senior candidates specifically for 45-minute dinners\u2014he\u2019s watching how they carry themselves off the clock while also listening for one word in particular. Say \u201cI\u201d too much and it signals you\u2019re not a team player.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, I\u00f1aki Ere\u00f1o, 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n One CEO won\u2019t hire anyone who salts their food before tasting it because it\u2019s a red flag they\u2019re impatient. Another secretly asks the server to mess up the candidate\u2019s order mid-meal just to see how they react. Then there\u2019s the coffee cup test, where CEOs gauge how conscientious you are by how you handle the drink you\u2019re offered after the interview.<\/p>\n Even the iconic late Apple founder Steve Jobs had a \u201cbeer test\u201d where he\u2019d take candidates on an informal walk-and-talk to find out what they\u2019re like off-duty. Jobs would then ask himself: \u201cWould I have a beer with this person? Would I talk to him or her in a relaxed way while taking a walk?\u201d If the answer was no, they weren\u2019t hired.<\/p>\n And recruiters told Fortune<\/em> these personality tricks actually work. \u201cThese 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,\u201d Saira Demmer, CEO of SF Recruitment, said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCulture 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.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #billion #CEO #hunts #managers #left #reference #list #personality<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1056,424,426,369,1285,1910,2379,818,12998,430,1117,437,567,6292,155,12999,11231,566,565,4451,5244,4978],"class_list":["post-11460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-billion","tag-career-advice","tag-careers","tag-ceo","tag-chief-executive-officer-ceo","tag-employment","tag-founders","tag-hiring","tag-hunts","tag-jobs","tag-left","tag-list","tag-management","tag-management-advice","tag-managers","tag-personality","tag-reference","tag-retention","tag-talent-acquisition","tag-the-interview-playbook","tag-unemployment","tag-view-from-the-c-suite"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}CEO says he\u2019ll take a 9\/10 on personality over a 9\/10 on talent\u2014every single time<\/h2>\n
CEOs are increasingly testing personality\u2014they\u2019re using coffee cups and restaurants to do it<\/h2>\n