I'll never forget a temp job I got 5 or 6 years ago. I had maybe 6 mos experience and a 2 year CCNA course on my resume (I had not completed CCNA at that point)
Got a call from a HR lady who really needed people, like, right now for a temp job in DC. She was reluctant though because she said she wasn't sure that I had enough experience to do the job. (luckily I'm a decent talker, and they really needed people.)
The job was to do, and I'm not exagerating, unpack Dell monitors and hook them into the power supply / PC. No checking the computer, new monitor, blue port, move on. I can't complain, the job paid good and it wasn't really hard work.
I was one of those "certs are useless" people until that day.