We've told you about why LinkedIn is great for job hunting, and gave you a good idea of how to get started with LinkedIn if you're new. Now it's time to dive into finding an actual job.

One of the most powerful tools for finding a job using LinkedIn is groups. Here are five that will significantly increase your job-hunting power.

Job Openings, Job Leads, and Job Connections!

As you might gather from the exclamatory title, this group is dedicated to just one thing: finding jobs. There are over 1,700,000 members in this group, making it one of the largest job-hunting groups on LinkedIn. At the time of this writing, there are 860 jobs posted in the Jobs section of the group, including positions like Product Manager, Quality Engineer Data Analyst, Audit Assistant, and Website Manager/Web Analysis.

Using this group to find a job isn't limited to perusing the job ads, though; there are currently 1000 job discussions happening as well. Most of these discussions are postings by recruiters looking to hire in places like London, Karachi, Switzerland, and Qatar.

In the general discussion portion of the group, you'll currently find things like résumé tips, "post your details here and let's help each other out"-type posts, and an article about the 7 habits of highly successful LinkedIn members.

One of the advantages of looking at jobs through a large group like this one, is that it's easy to see if you have any connections at the company. And if you don't, you can use the group to try to make some!

The Recruiter Network

With over 500,000 members, the Recruiter Network is a gold mine of potential connections. And because it concentrates on attracting recruiters, you have a good chance of making a connection with someone who's looking to hire. As of this writing, there are over 1,100 jobs and 320 discussions in the group, making it the most active on this list.

As you might expect with this number of jobs, there's a wide variety of career options represented, from Python Developer and Java Technical Architect to Sales Representative and Receptionist. While most of the jobs seem to be located in the US, there is an international presence in the group, meaning that it could be useful no matter where you are.

The members of the group are generally pretty highly ranked in their respective companies, and 22% of the members work in human resources (that's where recruiters and hiring managers usually work). The group is growing quickly, too, with over 3,000 new members last week. This is a great one to get involved in as soon as possible.

Indeed

Indeed is a job meta-search engine, and one of the top 10 most effective job-search sites. If you've done any job searching on LinkedIn, you're probably familiar with Indeed, as LinkedIn uses their service to display more jobs that match your search. Their job-hunting group is just as good as their search service.

A quick scan through their job listings reveals that most of the postings are for US-based positions, but that there's a good variety of job types. Roadway Engineering Technician, Lease Analyst, and Art Director are all posted in this group at the moment.

The discussion section contains the type of job-finding advice you'd expect, like interview techniques, résumé tips, and LinkedIn job-hunting advice. The discussion section also includes a number of employers looking for recruits.

This group is best for people looking for jobs in the US, and can help you not only make connections, but also learn a lot of useful information about the job-hunting process.

A Job Needed - A Job Posted

This group is populated by mostly people with senior-level positions. With almost 50,000 members, though, there's still a great chance you'll be able to connect with someone that can help you find the job you're looking for. As of this writing, there are 51 jobs posted and 161 job discussions, which isn't many, but the quality of the group makes up for the low numbers.

Because of the smaller number of posted jobs and discussions, the best way to use this group is for making connections with other people (especially senior-level people). If you're looking for an entry-level position, however, you might want to be careful about joining and using this group, as it might look like a bit sycophantic if you don't have a good reason to be there.

Jobs 2.0 (Various) [No Longer Available]

This group contains a number of subgroups that cater specifically to smaller groups of people. There are some that are targeted at certain parts of the world — Europe, for example, or the Middle East — and some that are focused on specific job types.

An exhaustive list would go on for a very long time, but there are groups for media jobs, IT positions, management, graduating students, executives, HR, telecom, and higher education, to name a few. Almost every subgroup of Jobs 2.0 has over 2,000 members, and quite a few have over 3,000.

Something that's important to note about Jobs 2.0 is that it's provided by Resumark, a résumé-posting website, and that the purpose of the group is probably to get you to use their service. However, because of the large number of group members, you're likely to be able to make a useful connection anyway.

Another thing I noticed about Jobs 2.0 is that join requests can take quite a while to be approved, so get your request in early. It might also help to send the group manager a message if you've been waiting for a long time.

Finding Other Groups

No matter what field you're in, there's almost certainly a group that's focused on helping you and people like you get a job. Just type the name of your field and "jobs" in the search bar, and click the link for Groups in the left sidebar. You'll be presented with a list of groups that might be able to help you out.

You can also view the groups that your connections are in by opening their profile and scrolling down to the bottom of the page. Look at your connections in fields you're interested in and browse through their groups to see if there are any that you might be able to take advantage of to find a job.

If you can't find any groups that look like they'll help you find a job, you can always start your own. While this won't get you in touch with recruiters soon, it'll be a great resource in the future and might help others find jobs as well. If you're looking for jobs in a certain area, it's almost guaranteed that somebody else out there is too!

Go Find A Job!

With these five groups and some tips on how to find others, you should have a good idea of how to find a group that will help you get a job. If you need more ideas on how to use LinkedIn to get a job, check out these 8 LinkedIn hacks to further your career and these tips on how to make your LinkedIn profile irresistible. Now get out there and start looking for your dream job!

Have you found a job using a LinkedIn group? Are you a recruiter who looks for potential hirees using LinkedIn groups? What's your favorite job-hunting group? Share your advice and experiences below!

Image Credits: Lars Plougmann Via Flickr