Certifications to me felt like a drawback if i see them on a resume. They make no sense. It's pay-for-paper, the classes often come with indoctrination into a product line, no real quality I've seen from those with certifications except for lacking knowledge in anything not in the class.
The only benefit I could see, is someone changing professions later in life who isn't able to go back to school. But for someone junior - go to frigging school, even if it's junior college. For someone who did this later, then you can tell that they have some real job experience even if it's not coding, and that's a bonus. Just don't aim for the bottom, and certificates are sort of like aiming for the bottom; the least effort possible to try to convince someone to hire you instead of one of the millions of offshore rote programmers who are cheaper.
I completely agree with the pay-for-paper observation, especially if you look back to the dot.com boom in the late 90s, where any Joe Sixpack could get a certification over the weekend. However, I've worked at companies where promotions and raises were tied to getting certifications, which is worse than useless, IMHO.