I've yet to interview anyone that didn't know C or C++ but correctly understood pointers and references. Of course that's not necessarily bad since it's not a useful distinction in some higher level languages.
I sorta know both, but I'm generally more comfortable speaking in terms of Lisp than C and if an interviewer forces me to speak in terms of C I'm likely to be less cogent.
Working with pointers in C or C++ is a decidedly lower level construct that Lisp. Not to make any sort of value judgement between the two languages - but with a c pointer, you are accessing a very specific point in memory. If you're pointing to the first element of an array, add one to that pointer, you're now accessing the second element of that array.
This close to the metal mindset is what makes C/C++ valuable for learning how code compiles to assembly, and understanding _how_ your program is executed.
That's an implementation detail that doesn't bear much on actually using the language. The cons cell abstraction leaks sometimes, sure, but I wouldn't say that the concept of "pointer" is fundamental to Lisp at all.