diff --git a/test/e2e_node/oomkiller_test.go b/test/e2e_node/oomkiller_test.go
index 79fe547732c..6dfce311c2b 100644
--- a/test/e2e_node/oomkiller_test.go
+++ b/test/e2e_node/oomkiller_test.go
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ func getOOMTargetContainer(name string) v1.Container {
 			"sh",
 			"-c",
 			// use the dd tool to attempt to allocate 20M in a block which exceeds the limit
-			"dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null bs=20M",
+			"sleep 5 && dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null bs=20M",
 		},
 		Resources: v1.ResourceRequirements{
 			Requests: v1.ResourceList{