How much does a certificate matter?

Have a look at this conversation:

Friend A: Hey Man, I am now a certified Java Programmer
Friend B: That’s Gr8 dude !!!
A: Yeah I know. Today was the last day to get certified so I am really relaxed now.
B: Huh, What do you mean by last day?
A: Well, today was the deadline for our batch in our company to get certified.
B: Ohh I see…so you must be aware of multiprogramming feature of Java. Please explain it to me. I am not able to implement it.
A: Sure. Multiprogramming is ’Yada Yada Yada…blah blah blah….’
B: Dude, even I know the definition of it but how do you use it??
A: Sorry man I won’t be able to help you on that. I haven’t used it myself either.
B: But you just got certified right? Wasn’t this topic in your syllabus???
A: It was but I didn’t really go deep into it because in the exam you don’t get very hard questions related to this.

First of all, I would like to say that I am not against any certification !!! I am against those who force people to get certified.
Generally people get certified because they have been asked to do so or they are looking for a job which demands a certification.
But I’ve also seen people who challenge themselves for a certification & I am proud to say that I belong to this category. I recently became a certified tester but I wasn’t told to do so. No one told me to get certified in x months.
I have only 9 months experience in testing so when I was preparing for the exam, I could relate most of the topics with the experiences that I had. This has helped me in learning new stuff in testing that I could now use in the future. Above everything else it made me realize how many technical mistakes I had made. The benefit is obviously yours if you do it with a good heart and not just for pasting a logo on your resume.

Suppose you have a good experience in one technology or testing or whatever and still no one has asked you to get certified. The obvious benefit of this that you don’t have a hammer on your head to get certified.
However the loss is yours !!! You won’t be able to judge where you stand. You Don’t know what to expect from yourself.

Don’t just get certified just for the sake of it. Do it to improve your skills.
I don’t need a certification to prove that I am a tester. My work will show that. However I need it to show people that I am very capable of being a good tester and ready to learn new things.