The Art Of Creative Destruction

This was when I had passed out of college and was looking for a job. I was standing in the queue and was waiting for my turn to hand over resume to the HR. While I was standing in the queue I was seeing people chatting about their skill sets and certifications. Listening to that I was sure that they are experienced and I had started feeling inferior. It’s now few years from then and I had worked with different organizations, different kind of people, people with different domains experience and different skill sets and certifications. I sometime think now about what is the best way to judge the person’s caliber or his true strength? Is it skill sets or certifications? When we see a Job post in a news paper I see people step back thinking about the requirements that would be posted. Things would be like..we want people who are java, CCNA, CSTE ISTQB, .. xyz.. Certified. I wish I had an option to ask the companies that, do they really get what they expect when they hire a certified professional. Are they efficient enough to accomplish their expectation? I am sure they would not have an answer for this. Think about what is a certification. Candidates would go through test papers, mocks etc and would appear for the exams and would get though with certain percentage and the person would be awarded with a certificate stating that he is a xyz certified professional. My question is, does this truly reflect the caliber of a candidate.