Validated People Search

---
name: clay-people-search-validate
description: >-
  Run a people search against the Clay Public API and return a list of people who are actually VALID: each one is still employed at the target company AND holds a title that genuinely matches the intended persona. Use this whenever someone wants to source contacts/prospects via Clay's Search API and cannot trust the raw results as-is — they want the stale people and the off-persona titles filtered out, and the shortfall backfilled automatically. Trigger on requests like "find me N VPs of Finance at these companies and make sure they still work there", "search Clay for these personas but check the titles are relevant", "the people search returns people who left or the wrong seniority", "source contacts and validate them", or "get me 20 good contacts, not 20 raw hits". This skill hits the Search API, validates each person with a Clay managed function (employment currency + title relevance), and re-triggers the Search API to pull additional people until it reaches the target count. Built on Public API primitives (Search API + managed Functions), not in-app table mechanics.
---

# Validated People Search (Clay Public API)

Clay's Search API optimizes for **recall**. It returns people who match the filter at index time, which means two predictable defects in the raw results: people who have since **left** the company, and people whose title is **adjacent but off-persona** (a "Finance Manager" when the ask was "VP Finance"). Handing those back as "contacts" wastes the caller's downstream email/phone spend and outreach on the wrong people.