The resume has evolved.

The early version was typed with three carbon copies (three being the magic number before a copy became indecipherable).

Then the resume was typed once (with lots of correction fluid used in the process) then photo copied onto cream or ochre-colored paper so that it would stand out from other resumes (which were also on cream or ochre paper for the same reason).

If, in your job hunt you wanted to remain anonymous, you would give your return address as your sister-in-law's house in New Hampshire with a note that said you would disclose who you were, if the employer would say who it was .

Next came computer job boards. You typed your resume into your computer and uploaded it onto Monster.com or into ResumeRabbit, which would upload it onto Monster and HotJobs and Yahoo! jobs and anywhere else.

Today job hunting is meeting computer dating (without the 10-year-old photos).

A new system matches employers with job seekers after both have answered a series of questions.

UnitedWeWork.org is a free Web site that is going live today.

So far 40 Fortune 500 companies (including Allstate, At&T, OfficeDepot and Hyatt Resorts International) have signed up to recruit workers.

Jason Kerr said his company, Quiet Agent, was working with another 96 companies to join.

The Web site is anonymous. Applicants do not reveal who they are until employers contact them. Employers can sift through applicants without contacting anyone until they have winnowed their field to a few.

The system guides applicants through filling in education and work experience, sort of like TurboTax takes taxpayers through the 1040.

The idea was developed by Mr. Kerr, who owned a company that created software for the airline industry. He started it after paying a recruiter $16,000 to nab a top employee in information technology. A year later the same recruiter stole the guy out from under him.

Mr. Kerr saw that current job boards had started to charge job seekers for services.

In an economy with unemployment closing in on 10 percent, he said that was reprehensible.

UnitedWeWork is going to be completely free for the next year so that companies, which spend a collective $58 billion a year recruiting workers, can use more of that money to pay for more workers.

In July 2010, companies will have to pay $35 for each prospective applicant who accepts the company's invitation to talk to them about a job.

Job seekers can block their current employers from seeing their profile -- and no one sees your name until you tell an employer you are interested in talking.

Another aspect is that if an applicant applies to a company that does not hire him, the company will refer that person to other companies that might be offering an appropriate job.

UnitedWeWork, which is sponsored by Quiet Agent and the 40 members of the founding alliance, was designed specifically to cut recruiting costs and speed up the hiring process, Mr. Kerr said.

"There's a bunch of great companies that got behind it," he said. "We want more people to start making hires sooner."