Job/Employment Benefits of Certification

I am currently studying for the SCEA exam and I am wondering what the people who have passed the SCEA exam have seen as the benefits of passing the exam. I have searched the Architecture Certification for exam benefits and I came up with nothing. If you can point me to the thread where this has been discussed before please do so.
Has having SCEA on your resume caused more you to receive more or different calls from recruiters? Has your current employer started using your skills in a different way because of your certification? What did you hope to gain from your certification?
Thanks!
Kent

I am scj2p, scwcd and scea part I.
I got one company to quit asking for scj2p
with my resume.
I think the pack of three got me an interview the
other day.
This has been discussed on this forum. In this
market, nobody believes a certificate will cause
prospective employers to roll out the red carpet.
They say it will get them to at least talk to you.
Nobody thinks it can hurt your resume.
Some people have stated that certificates are
worthless.
Everyone thinks you can learn through the process.

I'm scjp, scjd, scea and it help doesn't help going to interview but it did help me a lot getting the job. With the knowledge you get while studying you know much more and your knowledge is more precise than most of the guys out there. Therefore when it comes to technical interview you're a killer.
On the other hand it does help me doing a good job and as a potential employer if prefer if the guy got a certification. It shows its motivation and his knowledge...

Nothing beats experience, but it's tangible. It's something the recruiter can check off his/her list. Frequently the person you initially talk to is non technical and couln't tell you the difference between overloading and overriding. Typically they've been given a profile and their looking to hear key words or phrases. The SCEA may be one of those. If you can make it past them to a technically competent interviewer, then the certification won't mean much, but hopefully it will provide you with a strong basis for an organized, intelligent conversation about J2EE technology. Be prepared though, real tech's are going to care about a piece of paper they're going to care about what you can do with real bits and bytes and how you analyze/decompose a problem. Also, most employers like broad skills. Having experience with many platforms, many application types, many languages, many databases and other middleware is more telling than the SCEA.
Byron Estes