Madison Commercial Real Estate Services Wins Highest Award for Excellence in Online Communications

Aug. 10, 2011 - PRLog -- Monday Mornings with Madison, the weekly e-newsletter from Madison Commercial Real Estate Services (MCRES), was recently awarded a Gold Award for Best Series of Articles in an Electronic Publication or Web Site in the 2011 Magnum Opus competition. In 2010, the newsletter was bestowed a Silver Award in the same competition. Evaluating and celebrating the best in custom publications, the Magnum Opus 2011 Awards received more than 550 entries and was judged by professors from the renowned Missouri School of Journalism and leading custom-publishing professionals. Madison's winning five-part series focused on helping employers decide whether and how to hire new employees, in a series entitled "Staffing Up."

Available as a link on the MCRES web site (www.madisoncres.com), Monday Mornings with Madison is an informative, lively and thoughtful e-newsletter that explores work/life issues of importance to real estate professionals. It is sent each Monday morning to 28,000 subscribers, including investors, property owners, attorneys, CPAs, lenders, Realtors, mortgage brokers, title agents, and past clients. Written by Keren Peters, MCRES' Chief Marketing Officer, the mission of the weekly email column is to educate, enlighten and entertain readers with solidly researched and gracefully written short articles on a myriad of work-life topics.

In making the announcement, MCRES' President Joseph I. Rosenbaum said, "We are pleased to be recognized in the Magnum Opus competition for the second year in a row. Very few real estate services companies send out custom publications, much less produce an award-winning weekly newsletter. But Monday Mornings with Madison is entirely consistent with our role as a trusted advisor to our clients. We are committed to helping professionals grow their businesses, build their careers and simplify their lives. Monday Mornings with Madison explores the issues and provides information that helps our clients."

Clear, concise and comprehensive, the award-winning series of articles looked at how and when to start hiring new employees. After years of layoffs and hiring freezes, companies are considering adding staff again. Eventually, every company has to hire employees due to normal factors such as relocation and retirement of existing staff. The hiring process can be daunting but MCRES' five articles offered guidance and practical tools to help employers make the right choice.

   The first article, "Deciding When to Hire Again," provided business owners/managers with a series of questions to help them decide if it is time to add staff, including: have revenues risen over several quarters in a row; is your business keeping up with orders; are staff morale and energy depleted; and are there financial incentives for hiring now, with an explanation of important tax benefits that may apply to new hires.
   Part Two, "Finding the Right Candidate - Avoiding the Square Peg in the Round Hole," looked at steps managers can take to increase the likelihood of hiring the right candidate by accurately defining the position, including writing a job description, considering the right personality type, and identifying required skills.
   Part Three, "Screening Applicants with a Paper Interview," described how to evaluate applicant's resumes and cover letters by using a job rubric that assigns numerical scores to compare how well candidates fulfill each requirement. This allows employers to winnow the volume of applicants to a manageable number.
   Part Four, "Further Screening Applicants with a Phone Interview," presented an 11-step list for effectively conducting phone interviews of candidates with high "paper interview" scores. This eliminates applicants who appear more qualified on paper than they actually are, perhaps because their resumes were prepared by professional writers, and results in a short list of candidates who have the right skills and can discuss the job clearly and succinctly.
   Finally, Part Five, "How to Conduct Face-to-Face Candidate Interviews," explained the four types of questions hiring managers should prepare, including factual questions, hypothetical or situational questions, behavioral and stress questions, and describes why behavioral questions are the most revealing.

Based in Lakewood, N.J., Madison Commercial Real Estate Services, with more than $75 billion in transactions insured, is an umbrella organization that offers an array of specialty services for the commercial real estate market nationwide. These include: Madison Title Agency, a nationwide title agency that handles searches, writes policies, manages transactions and provides closing and escrow services in all 50 states, as well as offering REO solutions and bulk transaction management services; Madison SPECS, offering expert cost segregation studies; Madison Exchange, one of the nation's leading Qualified Intermediaries handling §1031 exchanges; LeaseProbe, producing commercial lease abstracts and handling Lease Administration and CAM Audits; and Real Diligence, offering accurate and reliable financial due diligence for commercial real estate acquisitions and distressed asset acquisition support.

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About Madison Commercial Real Estate Services

Madison Commercial Real Estate Services (MCRES), with more than $75 billion in transactions insured, is an umbrella organization that offers an array of specialty services for the commercial real estate market nationwide. These include: Madison Title Agency, a nationwide title agency that handles searches, writes policies, manages transactions and provides closing and escrow services in all 50 states, as well as offering REO Solutions and Bulk Transaction Management Services; Madison SPECS, offering expert cost segregation studies; Madison Exchange, one of the nation's leading Qualified Intermediaries handling §1031 exchanges; LeaseProbe, producing commercial lease abstracts and handling Lease Administration and CAM Audits; and Real Diligence, offering accurate and reliable financial due diligence for commercial real estate acquisitions and distressed asset acquisition support. For more information, visit madisoncres.com.