Lindsay Olson is a partner and recruiter with Paradigm Staffing (and PRNewser guest columnist). She specializes in helping companies and agencies find public relations and communications professionals throughout the United States. She has over ten years experience recruiting in the PR industry and also writes a career-related blog at LindsayOlson.com. You can find her on Twitter via @prjobs.

Her latest column explains the value of LinkedIn groups for your PR career.

By now, you surely have a LinkedIn profile, but are you participating in LinkedIn Groups?

Countless LinkedIn Groups exist for PR professionals - international industry groups, local groups, specialty PR groups (high-tech, sports, healthcare, etc.) and career communities.

Most people put up a profile on LinkedIn, add their connections and wait to be contacted. Some take it a step further and search for other industry colleagues of interest or use it to discover job leads. But simply searching for names and people who work for companies you want to contact will result in either buying a Premium account or asking for introductions through your network. Your search results may also be limited - the results of a LinkedIn search are only as strong as your networks connections.

LinkedIn Groups, however, allow you to bypass the introductions and interact with the source directly in a social, yet professional atmosphere. The main advantage to LinkedIn Groups is that you can browse or search through the Group membership and reach out to individuals directly (and privately if you prefer) without needing the first degree connection.

Take Paradigm Staffing's LinkedIn group, the Public Relations and Communications Jobs Community, for example. While this community is another tool for our search strategy, it also gives communciations professionals an outlet to engage in career-related discussions with us and with other communications professionals in a setting that helps the entire community. Everyday new members join, career discussions are led and discussed between members, and new jobs are posted to the Jobs section. Depending on your group notification preferences, you are notified of the new activity, every day, opening up new networking and job possibilities. Approaching others through a membership in the same group is a much warmer lead and will generate a quicker response than sending a resume to HR@XYZ.com and crossing your fingers.

If you are job searching or even considering a possible move in the future, being part of industry groups will help you (a) build connections (b) connect directly with individuals of interest (c) build your personal brand within a circle of like-minded professionals and (d) bring opportunities to your attention that may not be posted or discussed anywhere else. The best way to find groups worth joining is take a look at the groups your other connections are part of on their profile or do a simple search in the Groups Directory.