Industry standard qualifications

I was wondering what peoples' thoughts are on industry standard qualifications for the IT industry:

-which ones are regarded by employers?
-which ones to avoid?
-are they worth getting with the constand advancements in PC technology?
-is experience more useful?

I know an MCSE is usually pretty much asked for in quite a lot of jobs. Personally I decided to go for a comptia A+ accreditation back in september to break into IT as it seemed to be quite well regarded. Since then I've not got too far with it, although I've still to complete the course, but I really havent learnt much, so for employers that maybe have employed peope on the back of the course, maybe their views on it's worthiness have now been worsened?

Nowadays I'm starting to think that there is no fast way into the top end of the IT industry except with a lot of experience and with the right connections. What are peoples' experiences with the various courses around, and have you been helped more by experience or by the courses you have done?

To make the most out of MSCE and A+ you need experience otherwise employers will look at it as a paper qualification and experience counts more than anything. Prob is you can get those 2 qualifications just by studying and don't really have to have experience to get them(although it helps).

Don't get me wrong, they are excellent qualifications but they are nothing without experience to back up to knowledge.

As said above experience is the key, you pretty much have to start at the bottem and make your way up the ladder..It's basically a case of demonstrating you've got the inate ability to pick up IT stuff quick and prove yourself, if your face fits its not as difficult and you can get the skills on your CV, but there isn;t rwally any shortcuts unfortuantly