$5 billion CEO says he doesn’t just call references—he also secretly hunts down managers you didn’t list to ask about your personality

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........

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