Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do. I just verify. They can also use Firefox or any other browser's tools if they are more comfortable. We are not hiring junior devs, and even if so I would still probably ask. But experienced front end devs should know how to use a browser's debugger. Like others said, it's a flag that they potentially don't have problem solving skills. I mean, if they put a single console.log near what they think is going wrong…
Ah, that's good to hear. Sorry for the rant, and for interpreting you in the most negative way. As I've mentioned downthread, I've just annoyed with silly, definite, interviewing questions that's more like a trap and less like a discussion.
If I were asked to do it on my own laptop, it might be way more obvious for me to set up some watches or debug certain lines right from VSCode which I already have set up to integrate with Chrome debugging. That's how I most often debug. I've never learned to use those tools on Chrome directly because it's way more convenient to set a break point from my editor. On someone else's laptop, I'm going to reach for console.log because it's a tool I know is there no matter what the browser and what the dev env is on a stranger's laptop.
I've worked really hard to never use anything that could be a trap when I am interviewing a candidate. I'd rather do a sort of pair coding for 30 minutes and collaborate on solving a problem together.