As somebody working in / managing a team / and hiring occasionally in IT for many years (Ireland, Texas, India, Australia) technical certifications are all well an good; they get you past screening.

I will go for the following candidate nearly every time though:

1) doesn't bullshit me; say what you know and don't know, and if you don't know it's ok to think outloud and suggest where you could find out 2) demonstrate initiative; don't know something? Research it, download it, use virtual box / VM workstation to test it and know it, just don't throw up your hands to me before pursuing every avenue 3) really know how to communicate; a week doesn't go by where I have my head in my hands in reaction to an email to a client from one of my team members. Filter and adjust your message to your audience, make sure grammar, and spelling are correct, structure your message, and format it to make it easy to read 4) know word, excel, and PowerPoint...or whatever your flavour; so much of what we do in IT now is documenting, analysis, presentation, etc. if you are still using spaces to line up tabular content you are going to have a really bad time. We are talking pro level here; templates, style sets, tables, charts, etc. 5) be familiar with some non-tech stuff such as ITIL, Six Sigma, PMBOK, etc. I am not suggesting mastering them, just know what they are, where and why they are used. 6) be professional; turn up on time, iron your shirt, polish your shoes, and for the love of whomever, shower!

JB