Filtering New Hires by Company Size and Revenue with the Clay CLI

A NewHire signal's filters can restrict hires to companies in given headcount and annual-revenue buckets. The buckets are fixed strings with exact spellings, including thousands separators, and the CLI rejects any other value at creation with a generic error.

What you will build

NewHire signals that submit valid and invalid values for company_sizes and company_annual_revenues, plus the free-text industry and description keys that sit beside them, to show which of these keys are validated.

clay signals create --type NewHire --input '{...,"filters":{"company_sizes":[...],"company_annual_revenues":[...]}}'
    ↓
stored as submitted   |   exit 2 "--input: Invalid input"

AI Prompt

Using the Clay CLI, create a NewHire signal limited to companies of a given size and revenue.

Requirements:
- `company_sizes` values are exact bucket strings: 1, 2-10, 11-50, 51-200, 201-500, 501-1,000,
  1,001-5,000, 5,001-10,000, 10,001+. "501-1000" (no comma), "huge", and the number 50 are
  rejected.
- `company_annual_revenues` values are: 0-500K, 500K-1M, 1M-5M, 5M-10M, 10M-25M, 25M-75M,
  75M-200M, 200M-500M, 500M-1B, 1B-10B, 10B-100B, 100B-1T. "$5M" is rejected.
- `company_industries_include`, `company_industries_exclude`, and `company_description_keywords`
  are free text and are not checked against any list: "Definitely Not An Industry" is accepted.
- Rejected values return exit 2 with "--input: Invalid input" and no key name.
- Run the verification step below before finishing.

Prerequisites

• The clay CLI on PATH, authenticated via clay login (an OAuth session, not a Public API key)
• An existing companies segment (this doc uses audseg_0tm3nvu2EbBP6mjpk8f)

Note: JSON samples below are trimmed to the fields relevant to each step. Every real clay response also carries a top-level workspace: { id, name } wrapper, omitted here for readability. Every signal created here is Paused.

1. Valid size and revenue buckets

clay signals create --type NewHire --name "TPC19 newhire" --input '{"entityType":"ACCOUNT","segmentIds":["audseg_0tm3nvu2EbBP6mjpk8f"],"filters":{"start_from_method":"query","company_sizes":["11-50","51-200","501-1,000","10,001+"]}}'

Real stored values, .signal.inputs.filters restricted to the submitted keys:

{"start_from_method":"query","company_sizes":["11-50","51-200","501-1,000","10,001+"]}
{"start_from_method":"query","company_annual_revenues":["1M-5M","75M-200M","1B-10B"]}

2. Invalid spellings

Each exits 2 with --input: Invalid input:

3. Free-text keys beside them

These are accepted and stored as given:

{"start_from_method":"query","company_industries_exclude":["Staffing and Recruiting"],"company_industries_include":["Software Development"]}
{"start_from_method":"query","company_industries_include":["Definitely Not An Industry"]}
{"start_from_method":"query","company_description_keywords":["observability"]}

The second line shows an invented industry accepted without an error. Whether it matches anything is decided when the signal runs, which was not tested.

Verify the result

Confirm a thousands-separator bucket is accepted and its unseparated form is rejected:

clay signals create --type NewHire --name "TPC19 size verify" --input '{"entityType":"ACCOUNT","segmentIds":["audseg_0tm3nvu2EbBP6mjpk8f"],"filters":{"start_from_method":"query","company_sizes":["501-1000"]}}'; echo "exit $?"

Expected: stderr shows --input: Invalid input and the command prints exit 2; the same command with "501-1,000" exits 0.

How it works

company_sizes and company_annual_revenues are checked against closed lists of strings, so any value outside them fails at creation. The industry and description keys are typed as arrays of strings with no list behind them. The same CLI therefore rejects "501-1000" and accepts "Definitely Not An Industry" in the same filters object.

Common issues

The bucket spelling includes commas and a plus sign

501-1,000, 1,001-5,000, 5,001-10,000, and 10,001+ are the spellings. Copy them from the CLI help rather than retyping.

An invented industry is accepted

Free-text keys do not fail on a wrong value. Verify industry names against a source of real values before depending on them.

The error does not name the key

Invalid input does not say whether company_sizes or another key in the object failed. Submit one key at a time when debugging.

Next steps

• See the seniority doc in this batch for the enumerated person keys.
• See the validation-map doc in this batch for every NewHire key grouped by whether its value is checked.

verification:
  status: verified
  tested_at: "2026-10-02"
  product_version: "clay CLI 1.8.0+71cb1bf09c7e"
  command: "clay signals create --type NewHire --name \"TPC19 size verify\" --input '{\"entityType\":\"ACCOUNT\",\"segmentIds\":[\"audseg_0tm3nvu2EbBP6mjpk8f\"],\"filters\":{\"start_from_method\":\"query\",\"company_sizes\":[\"501-1000\"]}}'; echo \"exit $?\""
  expected_result: "stderr shows --input: Invalid input and the command prints exit 2; the same command with 501-1,000 exits 0."

Related Articles

• Watching Companies for Matching New Hires with the Clay CLI
• What the Server Adds to a Signal's Inputs, Per Type, with the Clay CLI
• Which NewHire Filter Keys Validate Their Values with the Clay CLI