A OCA certificate (like the author holds) isn't actually that easy to pass. You sit through a 2 hour multiple choice exam. Maybe it was easy for him, but that says more about him. I had to study for a month to get up to a sufficient level to pass. I learned quite a bit, even though i had two and a half years of experience as a java developer. Someone who passes that has healthy enough brain cells and knows java well enough to be a valuable team member. Of course certificates aren't the be-all-and-end-all, but if i was hiring another Java dev and one of them held an OCA, then i wouldn't need to check his java knowledge. If he did not, I would need to look at his code, at least. Of course, not every cert is as well recognized in the market as the OCA and some or even most of them might well be useless.