Hi,
I have been in IT for 17 years and never bothered with my certification until I joined Microsoft. You have to remember that it's all very well to have the certification but with out experience it can mean nothing. If 2 people came in for an interview and one had 5 years exp and one had exams and no exp then normally you would go with the exp, but it would depend on how they interview
More than happy to point you in the right direction, the exams for server 2012 and Windows 8 will be the best ones to go for.