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This is good advice, even low level computer jobs pay good compared to other options.
Also, after you have a year or 2 under your belt with a new 'junior' job, don't stay satisfied at that position, start moving up, or move to another company. In just a few short years, everyone will forget about that 'missing' time period when your career had a false start.
Edit: I learn the most new skills when I start a new job. Just getting the job is 90% of the work. At the new job, always ask to work on the project that uses the technology you most want to learn for your career.
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In addition to what Richard (and others) said, I recommend building a non-trivial (start simple, then add complexity) web app that you can host at a cheap ASP .NET host in order to be able to demo to a potential employer. Nothing says "I can code" like demonstratable running code.
Good luck! 
/ravi
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That does help and also articles on here. Helped me land me my last job before retiring.
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thank you , seems so much realistic. 
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My dear brother, this could be the best advice. This is where software has more advantage. The ability for a beginner to start a project with minimal resources (laptop and internet) and then improve it.
Project
Project
Project
Fortēs fortūna adjuvat.
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Ravi Bhavnani wrote: Nothing says "I can code" like demonstratable running code.
I couldn't agree more!
When I interview, I always ask for code to look at. First thing I check is if it has that "classroom assignment" or "copied from a book" smell to it. I expect you to be able to give a tour so I can also smell whether it is borrowed code and not your own. I want to see how you code, format your code, and most importantly comment your code. I don't look for any rigid "standard du jour", just if it is easy on the eyes, I may have to debug your code at some future date and I want to see if I'll be able to find my way around. Or better yet, what I can learn from it.
Most important to me is interacting to develop a sense of your understanding of the concepts. Again, I don't go for 'gotcha' syntax, those things change too fast (although I've met too many interviewers who delight in seeing if you know some obscure syntax they think is important), I want to see if you understand what you need to learn if you don't know it.
I look for passion, not a checklist.
Psychosis at 10
Film at 11
Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
modified 2-Dec-13 16:43pm.
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Where I work, we ask candidates who pass our phone screens and are invited for an in-person interview to write a small piece of code. We give them a small programming problem and see how they talk out their design and implement the algorithm. It's amazing what you can learn from this.
/ravi
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It's very difficult to get caught up you have to work twice as hard and be very devoted. As OP has said take a junior position and work hard.
I took a 10 year hiatus and have partially caught up but it took me a couple of years and there's still a lot I didn't have time for.
Good luck
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have seen it , though need some more ideas.
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seems really for me , reference artical. thank you.
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At the end of the day, what hiring managers really care about are
a) Can you get the job done
b) Are you dependable, honest and a good guy to work with
The advice here is solid. Get your skills brushed up, be honest and take any junior gig you can get. That gets you back in the game. Once you have a seat at the table and your tech skills are back where they should be, you can always look for another gig at a more realistic pay rate.
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your advice is solid, even for the junior roles interview technical skills that all companies care for. so no chance to get somethings unless I am really have skill that up and running.
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fatema wrote: even for the junior roles interview technical skills that all companies care for
Not necessarily. I have a job doing MVC, HTML, JQuery, C#, SQL. Of those, the only skills I brought in were C# and SQL (and I was 2 generations behind on those). I had 0 experience doing any web development at all.
What matters is can you communicate with technical people in a technical way, and believe it or not... first impression (do they like you) matters a lot, even before you start the interview.
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The bottom line for any job is that you have to be able to deliver the goods, so first on your list is getting your skills up to par.
You might consider taking whatever kind of non tech job that you can get right now just to keep the bills paid. Above and beyond getting the money you need to survive, a priority would be making sure you can work 40 hours and be done, giving you the time you need after work to study, code and get your programming skills polished.
You might also consider looking for a very small scale volunteer project as you study. Perhaps some non profit organization or local hobby / special interest group that needs a web site but has no technical capabilities. This gives you a real world app to work on as you learn (which I always find more educational than just doing book examples), but it also gives you something to put on your resume with that skill set.
Once you're ready, update the resume and look for a junior level job to get you back into the game. When you find it, you give the temp job two weeks notice (always be a professional even if it's washing dishes), and off you go.
It's not something you'll get done by January, but depending how hard you study, you could still be back in the coding biz in a matter of months.
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If you were out of work entirely, you'll need to be able to explain at some level why that happened and give potential employers reason to believe you're serious about returning to the workforce and won't end up bailing on them shortly after being hired. Local legislation may, and probably does, set limits beyond which a potential employer isn't allowed to ask; but I can't offer any guidance on what UK law says about the matter.
If you were working in a different field, you'll similarly need to be able to answer questions about what drove your shifts.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Good at C? Linux or AV company.
As long as you're on the fortunate 0.1% understanding what an *(unsigned char *)buffer++ = '\0'; is, or how to revert a single linked list, you're good to go.
The rest is experience - that won't come from a resume. Start checking a (beginner) position [^] on either C# or C, whatever fits you better.
Best line from "Finding Forrester" when Sean Connery tells to the youngster how to write:
"No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is… to write, not to think!"
Seems pretty good when programming, too. (That if you'll not be too busy doing meetings instead of coding, of course).
Nuclear launch detected
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Cristian Amarie wrote: *(unsigned char *)buffer++ = '\0';
Man, I miss the days when C / C++ ruled the Earth. I miss the dinosaurs, too. Just not as much. They always made a mess of my front yard.
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Well, I usually feel like on the extinction verge. But working on Bitdefender there isn't a single day without guts.
Just finished a meeting for the next version optimizer - should be freeze processes with NtSuspendProcess or registering ourselves as a debugger and do a some form of Break All?
Now *that's* the stuff I wanna do. Not jerking around yet another [fill spaces].JS library larger than user32.dll or discovering some new json database after working with ODBC for years.
Nuclear launch detected
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The big question is, what have you been doing for five years? Is it something that will lend itself to being useful in a new position? Something worthy of putting on your resume, or have you been in the big-house?
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You need to go all out.
Buy cheap old PC's from ebay, fit them out with all the free stuff, do a few practice projects in c/c++/c# on Linux, which is all free.
Start a project or two, tout a product around local businesses - it doesn't have to be brilliant, it's just that you can claim on your CV that this is 'commercial experience', without lying.
Open an account with Abe books and buy LOTS of cheap, used programming books to work through. When going to interviews, you've got to be able to talk the talk. This is not commercial, but you can claim 'familiarity' with all the tech; expand from C/C# and try out (free) Python, (free) Ruby etc.
C/C# are a natural fit for Interop, get used to building C library functions to be consumed by C# apps; if you're on windows there are free 'express' versions of Visual Studio.
And practice, practice, practice!
Then, when your CV looks good(a MS Word template looks good if you have the luxury - if not, do it on a friend's machine, then when you put the CV back on your Libre-office free wp, evrything will stay where it is meant to), HIT THE AGENCIES!
Job sites? CWJobs is a good one. Build experience with the agents. Once you've got a track record they'll often keep feeding you leads because you show.
Good hunting! 
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Ummm... "get back on track"? What track do you want to get back onto ?
You say you did C# and C. Now you want MVC, HTML, CSS.
First of all, do you know what position are you targeting? Or what particular type of project?
You must first determine what is it that you want.
In the "real programming world", C programming is nothing like college, trust me. But if you were any good at it, you must have some solid knowledge about data structures. First go with that and study some more. Add some algorithms and design patterns to your study list, and you're good to start pretty much anywhere a little above the beginner level.
Moving on... C#... this is a rather generic language.
Did you do desktop or web applications?
Did you like it ?
After answering this, you can choose a path to follow.
There are a lot of books out there, some good, some better, some garbage. This is not that important, anyone can read a book, but what matters is what you can do after reading that book.
Practice, practice, practice!
As someone else replied, if you're satisfied with the results of your studies (small projects and homework), you could make yourself an online portfolio. Probably it will not matter much, but you will be doing something which you can show if necessary. Also, you can get some self esteem from this too.
And most importantly, when applying for a job, be flexible, ask about personal improvement, be open to negotiation (regarding not only salary, but also position and projects). Be aware of what you know, be honest, and most importantly, be open.
And get ready to relive the student years, because you will most likely have to learn a lot of stuff after you get a job.
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