diff --git a/hack/jenkins/test-dockerized.sh b/hack/jenkins/test-dockerized.sh
index fe53a2032c2..08af5ac9465 100755
--- a/hack/jenkins/test-dockerized.sh
+++ b/hack/jenkins/test-dockerized.sh
@@ -55,6 +55,8 @@ make generated_files
 go install ./cmd/...
 ./hack/install-etcd.sh
 
+# bazel didn't like BUILD files in the staging repos, so we need to run unit tests
+make test WHAT="./vendor/k8s.io/apimachinery/... ./vendor/k8s.io/apiserver/... ./vendor/k8s.io/client-go/..."
 make test-cmd
 make test-integration
 ./hack/test-update-storage-objects.sh