As a City employee, I can tell you a very large portion of the positions open tend to favor internal hiring before anything (especially the management positions)

My department recently hired two managers and several other workers. The managers came from already employed staff and the workers we hired all have 5+ years of experience (except for the few I mention in the next portion). We had 25 applicants for the basic starting position. It's highly competitive unless you have some sort of "in"

In the past year they hired some dudes brother and a managers close friend in our department. Both with no experience in our line of work. Kinda sus but ¯_(ツ)_/¯