Personally I'm sure that the most important thing is your knowledge and skills - even if you learned everything you know in your free time, at home - just becouse you like it.

Once I've beed working as an advisor - the company just wnated to know who (i think) woulf fit the best. Well - nobody asked anybody about any certificates, etc. There was one guy, who thought that he would be somebody special becouse of his RedHat Admninistrator Certificate or something like this. In fact, his application landed in the waste bin immediatelly he left the room. Why?!
He had a certificate, but had nothing to show. When he answered our questions he never got to the point... That's all. The first approach is that you have a certificate and they assume you know what to do. The second is that you have a certificate and work as you were told to - no evolution, just a learned template. Which one is better - it depends...

Personally I've never tried to find a job as a programmer, becouse I know, that there are people, who know Perl (for example) much better than me - so I just keep tring to improve my skills and have some fun :-)

Good luck!
Greetz, Tom.