A qualification (whether degree, diploma, cert or other) is only worth something when it gets you or helps get you ahead of other people in one way or another.
For example:
* New Job
* Payrise
* Promotion
I've worked with employers who thought my IS degree was worthless, likewise I currently work with an employer who thinks my certs are a waste of paper.
However, I use the knowledge gained from the study from the certs every day, so the study itself was far from wasted. Its the knowledge, rather than the qualification itself, that is more likely to get you that new job. A company will appoint a candidate because of their skills/expertise making them the best person for the particular post, rather than because of the pieces of paper they hold.
Generally speaking, if you look at the job boards, you will find many ask for a degree ahead of a vendor cert, and those that ask for vendor certs ahead of degrees typically will be organisations that need to maintain a number of certified staff to retain "Certified Solution Provider" or similar status, although this is not always the case.
Thinking long term, a degree gives you the knowledge to think or apply general principles, whereas a certification gives you a piece of paper in one specific version of a product. The knowledge gained during the degree would be applicable to specific products (eg relational databases in my case). Although I studied Oracle at University, I don't touch it now - I use SQL Server mostly, with MySQL secondary. I've also used Sybase and PostgreSQL over the years, but they all apply the standard relational database principles.
Matt - in order to answer your question: to get a qualification that means something (I'm assuming you don't have a degree already given your comment), study the products, tools, techniques that you use or want to use in depth.
Its the knowledge of the product, rather than the qualification in itself, that will get you that job.
John
