None of my certifications I got were required, I was hired into the enterprise IT field with no formal training. But I will say the process of studying for and

None of my certifications I got were required, I was hired into the enterprise IT field with no formal training. But I will say the process of studying for and taking certifications was wildly beneficial to my job. In my case, I took community college courses aligned to these programs (mostly to keep me on track) and often was able to apply things I was getting from class directly to work. I would say the certifications fill in a lot of gaps, and do give you a good baseline. It's definitely going to be a "you get out what you put in" thing though. Folks trying to rote-memorize dumps aren't going to get anything out of it. Personally, I used practice tests to evaluate and tell me where I needed to go back and study more, and then jumped back into the material in those places.