As an analogy, imagine that there's a new senior job opening in your organisation, and both you and a colleague are considering applying. You're both pretty skilled, with resumes that are quite similar, albeit not identical. You hear through the grapevine that you co-worker plays golf with a couple of the people who'll be on the interview panel, but you trust them to be impartial.
Then the official job description gets published, and it's identical to your colleague's resume. It's as if somebody has gone through it line by line and translated that into the job's desirables. In some cases, the requirements are verbatim copies of some experience your colleague mentions.
Now, you're convinced that you could still do the job. And perhaps if you really knock it out of the park during the interview, and make a deliberately lowballed salary demand, you've got a chance. But, at this point, would you believe that the process is impartial? Or would you conclude that, at the very least, it is so stacked heavily in favour of your colleague that your chances of swaying the interviewers over to your side are slim, and perhaps nonexistent?