Certificates and Qualifications – Are employers missing the point?

Project Management qualifications are often overlooked, as most contractors generally have ten years plus practical experience and at least one of the major industry certificates. However, this issue was brought to the fore recently, when I had a candidate rejected for not holding a formal Prince2 Practitioner Certificate. This is something that I have rarely seen over the years and led me to wonder which are the best formal qualifications and which ones are the toughest to achieve? Also, have qualifications really become more important than time served experience?

Prince2 is definitely the most popular and most requested qualification. However, is it really the one that employers should look for above some of the others? I remember one or two friends gaining their Practitioner certificates within months of graduating, which to be honest isn’t exactly a great advert. I am not saying that it's easy to pass or a bad qualification but surely something that employers take so seriously should have a level of exclusivity reached only by battle hardened project managers?

This is why I would argue that APMP or PMI Qualifications are actually ones that employers should look for when hiring contractors. Project Managers need a certain level of academic and practical experience to pass them and surely this is better than something that can be taken by anybody, regardless of whether they have delivered a project. Again, I am not saying that Prince2 is not important (as it has become a bit of an industry standard), but just hiring people on that basis is a dangerous business! Things such as ISEB, MSP and ITIL are, in my mind, a bit different, as they are geared more towards specific skill sets and industries rather than generic Project Management.

This leads me to the question of whether these qualifications are really more important than time served experience? I would strongly argue that they are not - how often does a project really follow such strict guidelines? Too many things can happen on a complex project to always follow each and every step, so surely someone that knows how to deliver inside (or outside) of the box is the most successful Project Manager.

I would be interested to know everyone’s thoughts? I am by no means an expert in these things and would love to hear your views and experiences within this particular minefield!
Thanks,
Will