It is not the IT executives that are doing the hiring..more often it is the HR manager who hires head hunters to do the hiring first and filtering people out. The people in the first two stages have no idea if you talk techie to them and what you have done in the last 5-10 years. They are more likely to call you up first if you have a piece of cert paper. Just like people with a college degree is more likely to get hired for the same. To me, my college education provided minimal real-life skills, but getting honors on GPA and a degree help me scored a decent paying job just like the way the cert has done for me.