In today's episode, I chat with Carly, GTM engineer at Mako Professionals, about building outbound systems for recruitment agencies—first for Evolution Group in the Netherlands placing financial staff, now for Mako Professionals in the US sourcing SAP and Oracle architects.
The standout workflow is a Clay-based candidate scoring table that scrapes job posts and candidate profiles, runs an AI match score, and only pushes the best-fit candidates into outreach sequences—with recruiters signing off on the results and being genuinely happy with the quality. From there, leads flow into a Lemlist sequence combining emails, LinkedIn, phone calls, and voice notes. Carly's path in is one of the more unexpected ones: operations assistant at a financial immigration company, got a cold LinkedIn message from an agency called Blueprints, everyone told her it was a scam, she followed her gut anyway, met Rayyan Khan who trained her, and hasn't looked back since. Her prediction: email is getting harder, LinkedIn is where the opportunity is growing, and automation through tools like Make is going to be the real differentiator as CRM and ATS integrations get smarter. Her advice cuts in two directions—for aspiring GTM engineers, don't get lost in the jargon, focus on building the workflow and saving time for your team, and use the free education that's already out there; for founders and CEOs, trust your GTM engineer and give them the space to work.
Enjoy 🙂
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0:00) Introduction to Outbound Wizards
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0:21) What Mako Professionals Does: GTM and Outbound for Recruitment Agencies
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1:33) The Clay Candidate Scoring Table: AI Match Scoring Before Pushing Into Campaigns
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2:43) The Lemlist Sequence: Emails, LinkedIn, Calls, and Voice Notes
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6:06) Carly's Journey: Operations Assistant to GTM Engineer via a LinkedIn Cold Message Everyone Said Was a Scam
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8:04) Predictions: Email Getting Harder, LinkedIn Growing, Automation Through Make Is the Opportunity
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10:55) Advice for GTM Engineers: Focus on the Workflow, Not the Jargon—Education Is Free
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12:13) Advice for Founders: Trust Your GTM Engineer and Give Them Space
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What is The GTM Engineer Podcast?
GTMEs didn't think they would evolve this way. They just kept automating things until it became their whole job. Now the tooling is moving faster than anyone can keep up with, there's no real playbook, and half the advice online is either too vague or written by someone who hasn't actually done it. This podcast is for you if you're in the middle of figuring it out - real workflows, numbers, and mistakes from expert GTMEs at startups, mid-market, and enterprise. If you're wiring up Clay, rethinking your outbound stack, or trying to make AI actually useful in your pipeline, welcome to the The GTM Engineer Podcast.