I think in some realms MCSE does pull some weight, such as large financial institutions and non-tech companies. There are newer certificates such as those from Coursera and Udacity that are starting to pull more and more weight from the industry, mainly tech though.
The main fields that benefit from this are business and technology. Human resources and recruiters tend not to be technical: they have no idea if you actually know Java or not. They simply know you have it on your resume. This gives them at least some peace of mind that you know at least some Java. Conversely, Business people can be evaluated on whether they know how to do basic things like rate of return or efficiency metrics.
This does help in that realm, but it helps in giving some people confidence as well. Some people have imposters syndrome so a certificate saying they know it alleviates that feeling.
The main fields that benefit from this are business and technology. Human resources and recruiters tend not to be technical: they have no idea if you actually know Java or not. They simply know you have it on your resume. This gives them at least some peace of mind that you know at least some Java. Conversely, Business people can be evaluated on whether they know how to do basic things like rate of return or efficiency metrics.
This does help in that realm, but it helps in giving some people confidence as well. Some people have imposters syndrome so a certificate saying they know it alleviates that feeling.