Referring to the first example about the settings page, if that was the challenge for a UX position, it was already wrong as challenge.

UX Designer discover problems and we do not design things by guessing or out of the blue, that is web design and occasionally some UI Designer who does not care about design something following the UX blue prints.

I was a web designer far in 2000, got a break from the field, got back as Product Designer, moved to UX/UI and then stayed in UX where I work from research till low/mid fidelity wireframes and occasionally high when they ask so.

If I think about the design challenges I've seen, the 95% are all the same. Statement of a problem which actually is a solution not a problem, at most a symptom, there's no dummy content and the request is to draw either a web app or a mobile app. Make no mistake, this shit, which has nothing to do with evaluate a colleague but just with being a formality a ritual "oh but everybody do it", has nothing to do with the size of the business or his popularity.

In general you can apply as UX Researcher, UX Designer, UX/UI, Product Designer, Visual Designer it is always the same copy/shit which, worst of all, it is served to you from a colleague and the final evaluation, based on complete opinable content it's always focused on the visual expect, because visual it's what our brain get and understand faster and at the same time, the whole stuff is it represents the business card of the company and your colleague, on their level of understanding of UX, system and people.