Why is the technical cert industry so broken?

Question

A colleague is trying to get certified on a major hardware brand's products and failed the test. While taking it he realized none of the questions that were on the test were related to any of the study materials. He said it was almost as if they taught him about A Christmas Carol and then tested him on War & Peace. The company told him after he failed the test, "You'll probably fail it four times." which tells me they're more interested in having a hard-to-pass test than anything else.Another colleague said this was his experience with an Agile cert he tried to get.Meanwhile, over at Microsoft... my experience has been that their certs are all this and a whole lot worse.Has this industry always been this bad? More importantly, are these certs even useful to anyone but the company and Pearson? Has anyone gotten a job because of a cert they had?

averageValentin · Accepted Answer

I've seen this too, and it's incredibly frustrating. Certs should be a stepping stone into the industry, not a stumbling block. It feels like the focus is more on making money from retakes rather than ensuring the test reflects actual job skills. The mismatch between study materials and test questions is disheartening for anyone trying to advance their career or break into a new field. We need a system where the effort put into learning is matched by the value of the certification gained.

h2odragon · Answer

Saw an outfit recently that required "ongoing education" from even the call center rats. This is probably actually a mechanism for "Boss's cousin Becky's Cert Mill" to get paid by the company and withdraw money from the employees.
"Kickbacks" got outlawed so the parasites had to call it by another name.
The problem is not "certs" or even a desire to help employees continue learning; its management that wants an easy token they can wave around instead of doing real things, and employees who are willing to participate in such horseshit.

otteromkram · Answer

Certifications are supposed to be tough or else they lose their credibility.