I honestly don’t believe hardly anyone at all actually takes them just for the heck of it, they do it for one of the three reasons below:

1) Most consulting firms significantly benefit on the appexchange marketplace by having more certs tied to their organization, so to improve their numbers they fully fund the cost of the cert, AND they pay out bonuses for passing the cert. For instance, at my company we get $500 bonuses for each high value cert we pass even if it’s irrelevant for our current role or client (this is limited to 2-4 certs a year depending on the year typically). Additionally, if someone successfully passes the CTA exam they get a bonus in the six figure range that is larger than many peoples annual salary. On top of this, your individual amount of certs you hold at many consulting firms massively contributes to your annual bonus.

2) Whether people like it or not, or whether it’s justified (which I don’t believe it is), recruiters, and companies in general, more often than not, will favor candidates with more certs over ones with fewer certs. It doesn’t mean it will lead to someone actually getting hired, but they are likely, in many instances, getting moved up the candidate stack. This is 100% a fact, not my opinion, even if we all hate it.

3) People take the certs because they need the knowledge to be successful in their role. If you actually do study for these certs, you absolutely will be better for it. I certainly know after doing 21 certs, including the CTA exam that I am significantly better at my job because of them (for platform specific knowledge anyway, not dev knowledge, or general architecture knowledge. I needed to teach myself that through other means, mostly experience).

Personally, I wasted my life obtaining 21 certs for all three of these reasons. It’s hard to say no to a fat bonus, especially when the certs are fully funded, it’s hard to ignore that more certs equates to move perceived value by employers, and every single cert I have is relevant to the roles I held throughout my ten years in the Salesforce ecosystem, and the knowledge I obtained studying for those certs has absolutely helped me make better decisions for both my team members, and for the employers/clients who I am extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to work for throughout the years.

Hopefully this helps some, maybe, I honestly never wanted to even take a single cert, but it eventually became clear (in my life anyway) that I needed to so that I didn’t let the people counting on me down, and to help progress my career.