Flexible multiple string comparision to determine variable value
You could keep an array of jobs, and the web application would send index instead of word 'small', 'medium', 'large'.

So you could have an array [3, 5, 8] and instead of "small" you send 0, instead of "medium" you send 1, and instead of "large" you send 2. You only need to check if the index received does not exceed the table size.