yeah, but usually those are places with a high volume of applicants and an even higher turnover rate from my experiences with it. Some companies just want warm bodies in there working and they could care less cause they get paid either way. But yeah, it's not that common and pretty hard and sometimes just comes down to a numbers game. To completely dismiss nepotism and connections of the sort would be to dismiss the reality of the situation.
It's not about skills though (it is but)...it really is about experience cause certain fields want to know their applicants have a competent background of the industry they are applying to and some familiarity with it.
I'm just happy that I've done wide enough variety of jobs to the point where I can atleast get called back for an interview. I had to tweak and adjust my resume to make it more appealing as well.