Given that a manager doesn't want to spend alot of time interviewing people, but they do want to hire more qualified personel, a weeding out process is needed.
Certifications can be worthless in such a weeding out process.
But unfortunately HR severley lacks the techinical skills to appropriately appraise the skills of the applicants. Modify the HR module. Some firms are now beginning to outsource their HR departments to specialized HR firms. Since the manager is the consumer of the HR firm's product, and if the applicants the HR firm digs up are of poor quality the manager can take their business elsewhere. And since this is basically what the rest of the industry is doing they have no reason not to do the same.