A certification is basically a sheet of paper saying you read some books and took a test. It doesn't actually mean you can apply anything you learned. At my last company we had 2 MCSDs that were completely worthless. They only had the certification and didn't have any real world experience. They did a lot more harm than good because they mislead less technical management. The managers thought these people knew what they were talking about because they had a certification so they just took their lame ideas as facts. Employers who aren't technically savy love certification holders because they simply don't know any better. The only reason to do it would be to earn a higher wage if you could directly tie it to that. Otherwise it's a waste of time and money. I now have my own company and I won't hire someone with a certification unless they have a good amount of real world experience and really good references from prior coworkers or managers. I would hire someone who doesn't even have a high school degree if they could prove their competence and had good references. There is no substitute for real world experience.