Spent six weekends on a cert that turned out to not matter at all for the role I actually wanted

Studied hard for a specific cloud certification because a job posting listed it as required, finally passed, then realized during the interview process that nobody on the panel had even looked at that line of my resume. They cared about a completely different set of skills that I could've been building those six weekends instead. Not saying certs are worthless, just wish I'd asked someone in the field before committing that much time to one specific line item.