I gained my MCSE about three years ago now and I must admit it has boosted my career from first line to fourth line support since I have been qualified. It was a long drawn out process of about 9 courses and exams.

I think the route taken to MCSE is a little obscure. The problem is that qualifications are gained in specific MS products, not neccessarily working practices. In IT there are many industry standards that have been elaborated upon by different comapnies. Look at HP UNIX and DEC UNIX. very simialr in some places, very different in others but both perform the same function.

The problem I think is qualifications are generalised by statements like 'MCSE' but not by practical background and experience. There is a large shortage in this country for qualified IT people, but there seem to be a lot of unemployed unqualified people with a vast amount of experience. The other problem I have found is being MCSE, I am pigeon holed by potential employers ans MS only. The fact I am also CLP, UNIX, TCP/IP, OS/400, CISCO and CCSA/CCSE is completely overlooked.

Qualifications are very worthwhile and I fully encourage anyone to gain industry recognised IT qualifications whenever they can. What you should also do is gain as many varied qualifications in hardware as well. Microsoft is not the start and end of IT by any means. UNIX, Novell, AS/400, DEC are all still out there and going strong. Don't overlook them!