IMHO: A programmer's Cert alone will not get you a job. You need to have experience and real knowledge to back it up. You'll get out of the exam what you put into it.
If you look at the Exam as a way to better understand the quirks and nuance of
Java, then that's exactly what you'll get and you'll become a better programmer because of it.
If you look at the Exam as a way to beef up your resume and you don't really care about retaining the information, then that's all you'll get.
Personally I took the first one -- I found that
answering people's questions in here really helped me to make sure I understood what was going on in the exam. WHY it worked that way and even HOW to use it ('cause I wrote a lot of l'il programs to
test stuff on). And now, after the exam, I think I'm a stronger programmer. I code quicker because I'm able to spot compiler errors before I run the compiler and I'm able to use API correctly without having to look up each one in the documentation.
But anyway -- that's my take.